A/N1 Another twist of canon coming. I never took Bryce's mission when he left after Nemesis to make much sense. I have retooled things a bit here. Some of you have asked, now the answer.

A long chapter and a big one.

So much fun chatting with reviewers and PMers. I try to respond to everyone but I'm writing this while writing other things and teaching classes and working on new guitar tunes, so it may take me a little time. But please stay in touch. You have no idea how much more rewarding it makes the writing, to get a review and not just a view (though views are nice).

Don't own Chuck.

Sarah vs. Omaha

CHAPTER SEVEN

House of the Rising Sun

"Look into yourself; discover yourself; keep close to yourself; call back your mind and will..[Y]ou run out, you spill yourself; carry a more steady hand…"

-Montaigne, Of Vanity

Rising from the couch early, with the sun, Sarah tiptoed through the bedroom and into the bathroom. She had the burner phone tucked into the waistband of her pajamas bottoms, beneath the top. Bryce had rolled over as she passed, but had not stirred into wakefulness.

She shut the door and carefully clicked on the light. She had a phone already, of course, and Chuck knew the number. He had a phone, of course; she knew the number.

But she did not want to contact him on those phones. The burners were symbolic, at least to her. A fresh start, new. Starting over. She no longer his handler. He no longer her asset. Not that their new situation was uncomplicated.

She had no idea if Chuck would respond, but she had been awake much of the night trying to decide what to say to him, text to him. She could not talk to him, not yet. She had her reasons. Her throat almost closed as she thought about him. That was one reason of her reasons.

She put the toilet seat and lid down, shooting a hard look through the bathroom door toward Bryce as she did so, then she sat down. She took the burner out and looked at it. Its screen glowed at her as if waiting for her to make up her mind, take action. She had decided she did not want to send Chuck just a phone with a number. She needed to tell him something, say something. She had tossed and turned on the couch, trying to decide what to say. She had composed long, careful texts in her head: it had been a little like college again, struggling to write an essay. Except this was an essay at something big, important, life-changing.

Life-changing. She had thought about a different life. She had thought it was a mere fantasy until Chuck gave it color and weight. A different life. A normal life. Maybe that was not impossible for her. For a woman like her. She had changed; she was still taking inventory of the change.

She surveyed all the things she wanted to say, the elegant apologies she had written in her head. He must hate her as eloquently as her head-composed texts were elegant. Sighing, she sent Chuck a text.

So sorry. -S.

He almost certainly would not respond. Maybe that would be for the best. No. But at least he'd know she was sorry. So sorry. She was.

ooOoo

The Garland mansion was perhaps what the Addams' family home would have been, had it been kept up, the roses allowed to bud. I can't believe Chuck made me watch that silly show. And then all the jokes about Thing and handlers. Sarah smiled to herself involuntarily. The line of thought continued. Gretta Garland may not look like Morticia, but she deserves the name.

Sarah and Bryce had gotten out of a cab down the street and joined the line of folks, invitations in hand, who were here for the party. This was not a charitable event, but a social one, and Garland had made that clear when she visited them in the hotel, putting her hand on Bryce's arm a couple of times to underscore it. "No one will be asking for money this time. But we appreciated your very generous donation last time."

The CIA's donation, of course. Bryce had been good with Garland. But then again, he was always good with women in that way. It was a natural gift, further honed by the Company, like his smile. He was careful to lean into her touch just slightly, always to make sure that her touch merited eye contact and received it. She, in turn, pushed her hair back behind her ears or she rubbed her other hand along her lengthy, bare legs.

And then it hit Sarah. Bryce isn't really pretending. He was, perhaps, pretending to pretend. But she realized that his act, such as it was, found its audience in her, not in Garland. Garland was getting the genuine article, real reactions. Bryce was interested. No, more, Bryce had every intention of sleeping with Garland if the mission would allow it. (Not necessitate it: covers and seduction missions almost never necessitated any such thing; there were nearly always alternatives. But Bryce was hoping the mission would allow it.)

Sarah wondered if he knew that about himself. His earlier "Close but no cigar" speech had seemed sincere enough, been sincere at the moment, but he now looked to her like he was prepared to give Gretta full access to the humidor.

But maybe Sarah was wrong about his audience: maybe it included himself as well as her. The spy life created these sorts of bizarre aberrations of self-knowledge. Knots. Tangles. Whirligigs. Constantly pretending, constantly lying; it ate away at the spy's underlying reality, corroded any genuine self. Like her, Bryce had been pretending and lying for a long time. At a certain point, how could either of them avoid pretending and lying to herself or to himself? When I said that I was lying I might have been lying…

And when the lies are not just shared abroad, but shared at home, how can a person still trust herself? How can she know she is not lying?

Truth was stability. Chuck, his wholeness, his openness-all stabilized by the truth. Yes, he could lie, did lie, but it was alien to him. He was never at home with it. The lie had not moved into the very heart of him, as it had her, as it had Bryce. His well was not poisoned.

Chuck. Would he believe her text? It was the truth, as far as she could tell. Her reflections and her emotional and bodily reactions all seemed to her to confirm it. Leaving him had turned out to be leaving parts of herself. She had never been whole in the way Chuck was whole, but she had never been this partial, this paralyzed. She was so, so sorry. She should never have run. But her life had made running instinctual, easy; she had been trained to run: by her father, by Graham, by the con life and the spy life.

Life. A normal life did not look boring to her, as it apparently did to Carina and as Carina thought it must to Sarah. Far from it, a normal life looked like a House of Mirrors to Sarah, but a frightening, not a fun one, a House full of non-distorting mirrors that would accurately reveal her to herself at long last, no excuses, no rationalizations, no nothing. Nothing but Sarah. Chuck would see her. And so would Sam. She did not know which terrorized her more.

By the time Garland left their hotel room, one last lingering touch on Bryce's arm later, Sarah was ready to attack the woman. Sarah had no romantic interest in Bryce, but Garland believed Sarah was his wife, and yet she had behaved that way. Because Garland believed it, Garland had behaved that way; she did it on purpose. She wanted Sarah to become anxious, to be anxious. Part of Bryce's appeal was not just Bryce himself or that Garland hoped he would delight her in bed, but that his making delighting Garland would eventually make Bryce's wife miserable. Misery: the cherry on Garland's adulterous sundae. If Bryce slept with Garland, Garland would be fantasizing a miserable Sarah, picturing Sarah finding out about it. The misery of others as an aphrodisiac. Sarah shuddered as Bryce showed Garland out.

She and Bryce got to the door of the Garland house, heavy and wooden. Above it was a half-moon of stained glass, an image of wolf's head, seemingly staring at the guests as they arrived. It was so unexpected that Sarah gasped. Bryce looked at her then followed her eyes up to it. "No accounting for taste," he commented. At that moment, Garland appeared in the door, taking Bryce by the arm and smiling a winner's smile at Sarah. Sarah did what she needed to do for the cover: she looked like a woman trying to be gracious while hurting. And there was some truth to it, of course, she was hurting, but she was not hurting over Bryce. Method actress.

"Bryce, my don't you look good enough to eat? Sarah, I imagine with him looking like this, you must have had to force yourself to come." Garland's smile grew as she enjoyed the deliberate ambiguities in what she had just said. Gretta repositioned her body so that her chest was pressed against the arm she was pulling to herself. She gave Bryce the briefest of glances, making sure he knew it was not an accident. Bryce chuckled and smiled in return, his eyes dipping into the deep neckline of her dress.

"Would you mind if I borrowed Bryce, Sarah? I want to introduce him to some people. He'll be in and out and back to you soon." Sarah forced herself not to respond to the continued ambiguity and nodded mutely as if she were reluctant to stop anything her husband did. The time to push back had not yet come; it would have to come eventually because Gretta would expect and want it. She would want a win, not a forfeit. Sarah could see that Bryce wanted her to let him make the rounds without any kind of confrontation. He might meet someone who would matter, someone else tied to Fulcrum.

Bryce was sure that the only Fulcrum agents who knew who he was, or had suspected him of being the Intersect were either dead or in prison. Sarah had believed him; so had Graham and Beckman, or he would never have been sent back under against Fulcrum. They were committed now. If Bryce were wrong, he would end up getting one or both of them killed. She hoped he was not wrong, but there was a stuntman side to Bryce's spying that had always annoyed Sarah, sometimes even enraged her. A desire to do the thing (whatever it was) in the most spectacular, Albert R. Broccoli-Harry Saltzmann way, the James Bond Way. He did almost everything spy-related as if he were on camera.

Sarah had been mortified when she finally understood he considered sex with her a spy-related thing. She knew he never filmed them together (I'd have killed him), but there were bedroom moments, especially near the end, when she could see him imagining the camera, when she half-expected him to frame her face in a viewfinder made by extending his index fingers upward while touching his thumbs together. Understanding it had not added to her pleasure; it had made her self-conscious at a moment when she was chasing the loss of self.

She let Bryce and Garland meander away, then went in search of the buffet. Walking through the gaudy, expensive home forced her to hide a sneer. The furniture choices resembled Bryce's spy choices; they were made to be seen by others, not chosen prudently or tastefully, with an eye to function or lasting beauty. It was furniture meant to put others in their place, not to be a comfortable place for others.

A number of men came up and introduced themselves to Sarah. Sarah interacted politely with each but was always careful to be looking around, as she explained, for her husband. Her appetite had come back somewhat, and so she got a couple of items from the buffet when she found it and slipped into a corner to eat. She wondered if Chuck had gotten the burner. If he had gotten her message. She had hidden her burner in the hotel room. She would not know until she got back. She ate another of the rubbery shrimp (not too bad if they were drenched in cocktail sauce) and waited for Bryce to finish setting the hook.

ooOoo

Chuck was up early. The thumb drive had been on his mind, Sarah too, Sarah most of all, but he was not sure what to do about her yet. He had June and Ellie and Casey to contend with today. He would try to figure out a strategy with Sarah. He could not wait long. There was no guarantee she would be in New Orleans for any length of time. Chuck was tempted to talk to Casey. Maybe he would. If he was going to confess it all to Ellie, he almost had to tell Casey first. And Casey probably knew anyway. Bugs. But of course, Casey might hustle him straight into a bunker. But Chuck had been struck by Casey's attitude since Sarah left. He had told Chuck he would protect him, even against June. Chuck felt like he had no choice but to take his chances with Casey, with them all with the whole situation.

Chuck went to his computer and unplugged everything but the power cord. He did everything he needed to do to make sure it was air-gapped, not hooked to the external world in any way. He had long ago found the CIA crap on it and figured out how to bypass it, so it did it again as he had many times.

Once he was ready, he plugged the thumb drive in. The amount of data on it overwhelmed Chuck. It contained information on not just dozens, but maybe hundreds of agents. Without really thinking about the consequences, on almost a whim, he searched 'Sarah Walker'.

A file came up, a big one. Chuck stared at the screen, now unnerved by his whim. There it was, the file on Sarah. He had flashed on a few things in connection with her, early on. But for the most part, she seemed not to be in the Intersect. Chuck was not sure why, but even though he saw her all the time, she never provoked any flash beyond the initial ones. Because he had always wanted her to tell him about herself by choice, he had never tried to find out more, to push the Intersect. He had waited, hoping. But now she was gone. He could know, know about her. One quick button depression. He could know about her: all that he did not know, and that was almost everything. He felt afraid, unsure. A little like Adam staring at the offered apple. "Eat, and know."

He shut it all down and pulled the thumb drive out, putting it in his pants pocket again. It was more than a perverse token: it was now a temptation.

ooOoo

A morning shift at the Buy More gave Chuck a reason to leave the apartment before Ellie and Devon woke up. He was supposed to clock in early to see about repairs. He was almost glad. He needed to make himself stop thinking for a while. He needed interior silence.

He'd been working steadily for several hours and it was almost time for lunch.

"Bartowski!"

At first, he thought it was June. But it turned out to be Anna Wu. She had a stack of electronics in her arms, and an envelope. "Repairs." She smirked through her heavy makeup. "Have fun." She twirled and left, leaving the stack on the table. Chuck grabbed the envelope. It was addressed to him, a repair. That was unusual, unique even. He tore the envelope open. Inside was a phone. Nothing else. He dumped it into his hand, then turned it on, expecting it not to work. But it did. After a moment, it was glowing. He looked at the screen. There was a text message. Feeling guilty for the second time in the day, he clicked on it.

So Sorry. -S.

Chuck did a double-take. That was what it said. He checked the phone. It had one contact number entered into it, a number he did not recognize. He grabbed the envelope and looked at the handwriting this time, not what was written. He recognized it from reports in Casey's apartment. S. Sarah.

"Bartowski!"

His name again, but again, thank God, still not June. Casey. "C'mon, numbnuts, we have to talk. June wants you across town in an hour. We will talk on the way."

ooOoo

Casey glanced at Bartowski out of the side of his eye. His face was flushed. He knew what was coming. Of course, he knew about the bugs, and he had to expect Casey to have been listening live or to have heard a recording of it.

Before Casey could come up with an opening gambit, Chuck plunged in. "Are you going to have to put me in a bunker, Casey, is that where we are really going? 'Cause if it is, I'd really like to stop and grab a carton of cigarettes."

Casey kept one eye on the road but turned slowly to Bartowski. "You don't smoke, moron."

Chuck shook his head ruefully. "No, but if I'm going to spend that much time alone, I might as well take up something that will shorten my time."

It took Casey a minute to process that. Bartowski grinned grimly.

"Huh, dark humor. Not exactly your meter, kid."

"Well, maybe it can become another of my new hobbies. You know, dark humor for smoking Chuck in the dark CIA hole, the Intersected Marlboro Man."

Casey tried to make his tone less gravelly. "I'm not going to take you to a bunker. We really are heading to Thorne. Although a bunker and cartons of non-filtered Kools might be a better way to go." Casey paused. "What are you going to tell Ellie and Devon."

"Everything."

Casey had known that would be the answer. The kid was not a half-measures sorta kid.

"Ok," Casey drawled out, cautiously. "But before we talk about that, I need you to tell me something. Why did Walker leave? And don't tell me she left for Bryce. Hell, if that's true, I'll hunt them down and kill them both myself. I don't buy it. Something else happened. And it happened around the time Bryce impersonated Lazarus."

Chuck whipped his head around. "What, numbnuts, I can't have gone to church? Choirboy here. If we drink together again, if that ever happens, ask to hear Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I'll make you weep. But don't change the topic. What happened between you two?"

Bartowski regarded Casey curiously, clearly a bit unsettled by the accuracy of Casey's suspicion. The kid finally spat it out. He told Casey the story of the kiss and of his reaction to it, his euphoria, and Sarah's utter panic.

"So you knew she didn't choose Bryce? She chose not to have to stay and sort things with you?" Casey was drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel.

"No, not until last night, really. But, well, you must have heard. Ellie made me think. What Bryce did to me left fingerprints all over my imagination. Years of thinking he was the superhero and I was the sidekick, if I was even the sidekick. The Boy Dunder." Casey grunted in amusement.

"At first, knowing that he and Sarah had been together, and knowing he still wanted her, I just assumed she still wanted him. But Ellie made me think. Maybe that isn't true."

Casey chewed the inside of his lower lip. He was hip-deep in ladyfeelings now. It felt like quicksand, sucking him in. Shit. In a minute, I'll be ready to buy magazines with stinky pages. He still was not sure how much he should tell Chuck. He was not lying: he was not going to put the kid in a bunker. But the kid knew Walker was in New Orleans. He was a flight risk, and a flight promise if Casey told him what he knew about Walker's feelings. The kid was working it out, and Casey needed time. He still had not talked to Beckman or his CIA cleaner buddy, but he expected to do both after he dropped Bartowski off.

"Look, I'm going to come with you to talk to Ellie. It'd be better if I explain, at least at first. You will be there; you can add anything you believe necessary. But you know, don't you, that this puts them in danger, real danger?"

Chuck sucked his lips in, nodding. "I know. More danger; they are already in danger. And we can tell Ellie that before we tell her anything. Give her a chance to opt-out before we read her in. But I'm pretty sure she knows there will be consequences to hearing what she wants to hear. She's sweet. She's sure not dumb."

"No, kid, she's sure not dumb. Let's just hope we are being smart. Let's hope she, and Captain Awesome, can keep a secret."

At the mention of Devon, each looked away from the other.

A few minutes later, Casey turned the Crown Vic into an almost empty parking lot. The lot belonged to a strip of stores that no longer seemed to belong to anyone in particular. Small, fly-by-night shops were in the stores. A candle shop. A screen printing t-shirt place. Casey stopped in front of an apparently empty storefront. The glass was covered over on the inside with newspapers. The inside was invisible.

As they got out of the car, one of the doors opened and June Thorne was standing there, still wearing her Wienerlicious uniform.

"Glad she's keeping a low profile," Casey griped under his breath. Casey walked with Bartowski to the door.

But when they got there, June put her hand on Casey's chest. "Just the Intersect today, Casey. He and I have things to talk about, things to work out. I need to get a first-hand sense of how that thing in his head works, other than seeing the face he makes when it does. I promise I'll keep the government's favorite science experiment in one piece."

Casey stood still for a minute, her hand pressing against him. Then he stepped back. He just did not know enough about what was going on to know how to play his hand. He needed information; he was flying blind. At least Thorne would be busy with Bartowski for a few hours. It would give him time to talk to his buddy and to Beckman.

"Ok. I will come back for him at 4 pm. Alright by you?"

Thorne nodded. "Perfect."

Casey looked at June and risked a comment. "He may be government property, but he is government property. The government won't take kindly to anyone harming their property."

Thorne just smiled and grabbed the kid by the hand, dragging him inside.

ooOoo

Looking around, Chuck saw very little in the store. A long, fold-out table with a printer and a couple of computers, a plastic chair in front of each. A neat stack of files on the near end. There was an old, threadbare couch against one wall and a tv on a stand near it. Other than that there was nothing but fluorescent lights above and linoleum beneath empty space until reaching the back wall.

Thorne seemed strangely pleased with it. "I needed a place to work other than that apartment Graham gave me, Walker's damn place. He arranged this on short notice. Not bad. We can work here on our days off. Everything we need is here, except for food, but there are lots of places nearby.

"So here's the plan, Intersect. Graham believes we've coddled you, used your power passively. We need to take the fight to Fulcrum, not wait for Fulcrum to reveal themselves. That's also the reason I sent you into Bump and Grind with Casey. I needed to see what you could do physically. The files say you've contributed to missions, but it sounds like mostly you've been like a winged cherub hovering above the fray, making funny faces. Given your performance yesterday, that may be all you are good for, but I am going to make you good for a lot more of that. Oh, yes, I am. Have a seat." She kicked toward the chairs in order to point.

Chuck walked to one of the plastic chairs and bent himself into it. He put his messenger bag on the floor. The burner was in it, in a pocket. And the thumb drive was still in his pants pocket. He was worried about both. Having them both near June.

June offered, without further comment, "You're tall."

She then grabbed one of the files and handed it to Chuck. It was full. She handed him a small digital tape recorder that had been obscured from view by the files.

"Go through and look at each photo. If you flash, report that contents of the flash into the recorder."

"But there must be a hundred photos in here. Who knows how many times I will flash?"

June reached over and smacked his cheek lightly, teasingly, except that the real slaps from before ruined the effect. "And that's just what we want to find out."

"But, um, look. I guess my face in the shop made you think a flash was pleasurable, but it isn't. One in isolation is not so bad. But they get worse as they go. I get headaches and my vision eventually gets blurry. It takes hours to return to normal…"

"Don't worry, Intersect, the government thought of everything." She reached into file Chuck was holding and pulled out a thin package of aspirin, the sort you buy at a gas station, two tablets per. It was Excedrin Extra Strength. "Got you covered." She snorted a laugh. "Get cracking."

The next two and a half hours were misery. Somehow, Thorne had found a file that was rich with flash-producing faces or information. Thirty minutes in, Chuck's head felt like a melon on a Ginsu infomercial; an hour in, his brain had become off-color elbow noodles; two hours in, his eyes threatened to cross permanently and he was forgetting his own name. He did it, though, kept at it and recorded all that came to him in each flash.

Thorne reclined on the couch, watching a show with the volume so low that Chuck could not identify it. Finally, he was done. He put the final page back in the file and closed it. He carefully leaned into his own hands, his elbows props against the table, and allowed himself to rock back and forth from the waist. The repetitive movement was soothing.

And then he felt a hand in his hair. June tilted his head back and suddenly her mouth was on his. For a split second, he thought she was trying to bite out his tongue, then he realized she was kissing him. There was a strong taste of cloves. A near rhyme for her hooves. He pushed himself back from the table hard, and the plastic chair tipped over, taking him with it, tearing him from her lips and her hands.

He hit the floor violently, so hard it almost knocked the wind out of him. He gasped. June stood over him, her purple eyes flashing in amusement. "I told you there'd be treats."

Chuck rolled over to the opposite side of the chair from the one she was standing on. He got up on his hands and knees. He was staring down at the linoleum.

"Never, ever, do something like that to me again. I will do what you say until it involves my...person. Then, no, the answer is just no." He turned his head to take her in. She had walked away. She was holding the door open.

"Casey's here for you, Intersect. Good work. I believe we can get more out of you, though. Be ready for next time."

Chuck forced himself to stand, and took a deep breath as the top of his head threatened to detach from his body. He turned to the table and grabbed the packet of aspirin. He walked outside. Casey was in the Crown Vic. The engine was running. Chuck got in and Casey handed him a cold bottle of water. Chuck took the aspirin the gulped down the water.

"Ok, kid?"

Chuck nodded gingerly and did not speak.

ooOoo

After a stop at his place to shut down all the surveillance equipment, Casey led Bartowski to Ellie. Ellie had opened the door to let them in. The drive had done the kid some good. He had some of his color back. He told Casey what had happened. Only the kiss surprised Casey; the rest was predictable. They were functionally bunkering Chuck part-time, above ground, in that empty store. Thorne was his handler and also his jailor.

Ellie had coffee made and she poured everyone a cup. Devon had been kept at the hospital by an emergency operation. He was unlikely to be home any time soon.

If she was unhappy that Casey was going to be part of the conversation, Ellie hid it well. She handed Casey a mug and smiled at him. The look was very different than the one she had given him when she had just returned from New Orleans. Ellie gave the kid a mug. He took it and inhaled the aroma deeply. He took a sip and settled back in his chair.

Ellie had wrapped her hands around her mug and watched her brother. She seemed content to wait for someone else to start the conversation. Casey did.

"Ellie, I am Major John Casey, NSA. I am a one-time soldier and a current spy. I work for General Diane Beckman, who runs the NSA. Sarah Walker works for the CIA, for Director Langston Graham. Together, we are...were part of a joint intelligence operation here in Burbank, a team. And a damn good one. What I am about to do is called 'reading you in'. Once I do, I can't take it back, and I will warn you, once I do, you will be in considerable danger."

Ellie nodded slowly. "Fine. I agree to be read in." She paused, thought for a moment. "About the other things you just said: ok, no surprise with you, John. I've seen toy soldiers who better conceal their military origins than you. So, that's not news" Ellie stopped and took another sip of coffee. "And I guess the information about Sarah is surprising, but no shock. There had to be some explanation for...how she is..." Ellie was choosing her words deliberately, slowly. She glanced at her brother.

"I have questions about each of you, but I will let them wait. You haven't told me about the entire team, I take it."

"No, your brother is crucial to the team, Ellie. He's why there is a team. He's why we've been so damn good."

"But Chuck is no spy, John.. Chuck's...Chuck. Brilliant. Loveable." She frowned. "A one-time maximizer turned satisficer." She gave Chuck an apologetic look. "But he's never fired a gun in his life. He's been punched in anger a couple of times by bullies, but he has never punched anyone in anger. How can Chuck be on a team with NSA and CIA secret agents? He's intimidated by our insurance agent!"

"Sis!" Bartowski burst out in protest. Ellie grinned but without much humor. "Seriously, one of you explain to me how Chuck's a spy."

The kid was rubbing his temples. Casey jumped in. "I take it you know Bryce Larkin is alive."

"I do." Ellie's features wrinkled in disgust.

"Bryce Larkin is also a CIA agent. He was for a time the...partner...of Sarah Walker…"

Ellie closed her eyes and spat out a word. "Goddamn."

Casey pushed forward. "Um, yes. Long-story-short for now, Larkin saved a crucial piece of government software from a group of rogue agents. He was...shot while doing it because he was taken to be one of the rogue agents. But before he...apparently died...he forwarded the software via email to a person he thought could be trusted to have it…."

Casey literally watched Ellie connect the dots. Unselfconsciously, she was using her finger to draw in the air, and she had indicated one point, then another, then traced a route between them.

She shot Casey a glance. "He sent it to Chuck." She looked at her brother. The kid did not admit it but he did not deny it, and, anyway, Ellie knew, she was running with it now. "But Chuck did not just get it in the sense of having it on his computer. He had it. He does."

The kid was gaping at his sister and Casey knew his own mouth was hanging open.

"El, how did you know?"

"Because it is the only thing that makes sense, the only thing that gets you on the team. They would have just taken it from you if they could. They had to have you…Some kind of download…?"

"Right," Casey conceded, "We had to have him. And Walker became his...handler protecting him in daylight or in social situations..."

"And you were the gargoyle perched over us in the night." Ellie continued in Casey's tone.

"Hey," Casey objected, a little hurt.

"Don't start with me, John. And don't deny my apartment is bugged. Everything makes so much sense now. You've been spying on us all this time."

"Only to protect you. And there are no bugs in...your private places." He grimaced. That sounded wrong. "I've tried to be discreet."

"'Discreet', John? Does that word have any place in this discussion? Know this. I want them out of here by tomorrow, the bugs, or I swear to God I will tear the place down finding them. Do you understand me?"

"But they are part of the protection for you all. Having your brother living with you puts you in danger, but the danger goes up now that you know."

"I understand. But no more bugs. Get them out, John." It was not a request.

Casey threw up his hands.

"So this thing, the program?"

The moron said it: "The Intersect."

"Yes, that. Stupid name. It's in your head? Is it hurting you? Frankly, Chuck, you look bad right now…"

"We don't think it's doing any damage, but we are still studying that…" Casey offered.

"If I….access it too much, it strains me. I get, um, headaches."

"What happens when you access it? Do you suddenly become James Bond?'

Casey laughed involuntarily. The kid gave him a flat look.

"No, El. The program is designed to combine and recombine existing intelligence agency data, data from both the NSA and the CIA. The point is to identify patterns in all the data, to see...a meaning in it, predict possible outcomes. It's like I can see farther than either agency because I'm standing on one shoulder of each. And having me in the field is like having a supercomputer there to assist the agents."

"So you are like...what was that comic book character you liked as a kid, the gruesome one who talked to a computer in his head?"

"Deathlok? Yeah, he called it ' 'puter'." The kid smiled for the first time in a while. "No, it's not like that really. I'm not Deathlok. The Intersect doesn't talk to me. And Deathlok was more a man inside a machine; I'm more a machine inside a man." His smile twisted. "Um, if you know what I mean."

Ellie sat her coffee on the coffee table. She looked at her hands for a moment. She sighed. "So, John, you were a soldier. What about Sarah? Did she do anything else before she became a CIA agent?"

"I don't know," Casey admitted, frankly. "She's been CIA a long time. I've known of her for a long time, but always as an agent."

"And what kind of agent was she?" Ellie was looking hard at Casey and now so was the kid.

"The best. Langston Graham's...right hand." Casey shut his mouth. He did not know much more, but it really was not his information to share.

"And so, Chuck," Ellie said, turning to face him, "you and Sarah, the two of you were...fake dating all this time?"

"It was a cover, yeah."

"That explains a lot, but not everything. But we can talk later." Ellie sighed again. "So, this is what has been going on. This is why Sarah and Casey came into your life, our lives, this Intersect thing. And Bryce Larkin gave it to you. So why is Sarah in New Orleans, and not here, doing her damn job, protecting you?"

"Because she left to go with Bryce. The rogue spies he has been fighting call themselves 'Fulcrum'. A group of them thought that Bryce had the Intersect, and they were trying to get it, get him, for Fulcrum. Bryce...escaped and all the members of that group were killed or captured. Bryce has gone back undercover to rejoin the fight against Fulcrum. Sarah asked to be reassigned to go with him." The kid gave his sister a sad smile. She returned it in kind.

"I'm sorry, Chuck. But why? Why would she do that, especially if you three were such a good team, especially if she felt…." Ellie gesticulated emptily and let her question drop.

They sat in a thick, cool silence. Ellie picked up her coffee, sipped it, and made a face. "It's cold. I'm going to make a fresh pot, and then you will tell me all this again, but from the beginning, with details." She gave Chuck a searching look. "Tell it to me, Chuck, like a story." She got up and went into the kitchen.

Casey took a long pull from his mug. The coffee was getting cold. Might as well get some more. He knew it would be a long night.

ooOoo

Chuck took advantage of the break to go to the bathroom. He took some more aspirin. The scent of cloves seemed like it was smeared on him, like Thorne was lurking nearby. He washed his face and brushed his teeth quickly. The scent weakened.

He had slipped the burner phone into his pocket as he and Casey walked from the Crown Vic to the apartment. He took it out. He sent a text. He was not sure what to say, but he did not want to make Sarah think he was ignoring the gesture. Because he knew it was a gesture, was a big gesture. In its way, maybe bigger than the kiss. She had left the rule book behind in order to create a means of communication between them. She had. Sarah. Miss Incommunicado. He was still hurt and angry, and he was still fighting images in his head of her with Bryce. Still. But…

Are you ok? -C.

A/N2 Whew. What did Casey find out from his CIA cleaner buddy? What did he and Beckman talk about? Will Chuck look at Sarah's file? What is the deal with Thorne? Answers, or at least partial answers to these questions in Chapter 8, "A Thorn Without a Rose". Tune in! Oh, and leave me a review, please, to keep the train running.

Oh, and there's a terrific version of the hymn with which Casey threatens Chuck by Mumford and Sons, if you don't know the more cloistered version.