A/N1 So, I didn't take Saturday off. Big surprise.

A long chapter for me, more like a chapter and a half. But there was no good way to dice up the final sections, especially given the formal 'place' I wanted the Postlude to occupy (it will show up soon). So here we go. Thanks for sticking with me. It's been a crazy three weeks. Time to put my pencil down and shut my notebook.

I'd love it if you shared some final thoughts with me, either here or after the Postlude.

Don't own Chuck.

Sarah vs. Omaha

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Purple Rain

Morning bled at the water's edge
The city was bringing me down
And my mind was on a ledge
Saying who's gonna help you now

Watching shadows within the shadows
They hide their dark selves from the sun
And her voice is just a memory
You're not fooling anyone
-Miike Snow, San Soleil

June's fingers started to squeeze the trigger. Chuck stepped into her sights.

The Intersect kept squeezing. Divide and conquer. Within mission parameters.

June resisted. Her head fired in pain worse than any agony she had so far endured. The rifle fell from her hands, landing with a dull splash in the mud. In her agony, she went face-down in the mud too. She screamed, but with her mouth against the muddy grass, not much sound escaped. Gritty water rushed past her lips and filled her mouth. Her eyes still squeezed shut against the pain, she started spitting it out.

When the pain retreated a few steps, she found that her hands had re-secured the rifle.

Mission. Mission. Waker. Walker.

She wiped her face, smearing dirt and water. She looked through the scope. Walker, Chuck, and Casey were gone. Rain continued to fall. Fall.

She found them again, on the far side of a heavy growth of trees. No clear shot. They were moving toward the large house. Cars were emptying in front of it. Some kind of party. What was happening? She turned the scope on the house. Long and flat. Formal. It was less a house, a home, more a rich-person conference center. The emptying cars typically held only one person. Only a couple had more than one person in them. Party?

June got up and put the rifle on her shoulder. Running in a crouch, she pulled out her silenced pistol. She was going to try to flank Walker, get ahead of her, and meet her as she arrived. June was not sure she could resist the Intersect again. She wanted to get a clear shot. She did not want to kill Chuck. Not even Casey. But there might be no way to stop it. She had to kill Walker. Her programming was overriding everything, even the monster writhing inside her was yielding. And the Intersect was affecting her physically. Her senses were in overdrive. Her sense of her own power maximized. Her heart was pounding, but her consciousness was acute.

She ran down an embankment, sliding as her speed increased and she neared the bottom. As she slid to a stop, a man with a rifle stepped into view. He had on a camo rain poncho. June raised her pistol and shot him in the head.

He sank to his knees, then timbered onto his face in the mud. Dead before he splashed down. He made no move to cushion or re-direct his fall. She got to his body and ransacked it quickly. He had a combat knife in his belt, and she took it. He also had four small explosives. They were miniature fragmentation grenades. The Intersect flashed: The grenades were deadly but soon to be phased out. Manufacturing problems and problems of unexpected detonation. Whatever. She yanked his belt off and put it around herself, tightening it down. The grenades stayed in place on it. She pulled off his poncho and put it on, pulling the hood over her muddy hair and muddy purple ribbon.

The grenades made it clear that whoever was in the house was not having a party, not of any normal sort. Serious business. Walker might be dead by another hand before June could reach her. No, it has to be me. Her Intersect shot adrenaline into her system; she tore downhill toward the house, staying low and in the brush as much as possible.

ooOoo

Casey kept smacking himself in the ear. Damn comms. Shaky in the rain. They popped and cracked.

"...Another bogey has….your direction...Take down….Careful...Flanking…" Shit. He turned to the kid and Walker but they just gave him looks. Their comms were cutting in and out too. They did not have time to compare notes.

Casey gestured down the treeline toward the house. "If we're going in after the old lady, we need to get to the back."

The line of cars was now nearly gone, the cars parked, the passengers inside. Chuck had not gotten a chance to look at anyone. Their opportunity was slipping through their hands. They were really not prepared to assault the place. The analyst counted eight guards before the comms went wonky. If their prior run-ins with Fulcrum were a trustworthy gauge, the guards would be heavily armed, extravagantly armed. They had to get in and get out, with the old lady, without getting into a firefight. Shit.

ooOoo

Beckman wanted to know what was going on. The satellite feed was now cutting in and out. The analysts were trying to figure it out. But the team's comms were malfunctioning in the weather. No doubt the government had paid untold millions for the tech and a Louisiana thunderstorm was turning it into cheap plastic junk. Just once, just once, she'd like things to work!

ooOoo

Joe found the doors to the Meeting room. Had to be. Grand and heavy and wooden. The hallways were empty. If anyone else had brought family, they must have stowed them in their rooms as Gretta had tried to stow Joe in hers. Joe sidled up to the doors. Putting her ear against them, she could make out words clearly.

"Welcome. Welcome. We will meet now and then, assuming the rain lets up, we will be able to spend the rest of the day enjoying the amenities here at the Estate. I trust you instructed any guests to stay in their rooms. They may move about after we have finished here.

"Please open your file folders. Remember that they must be left here when the Meeting ends. Anyone who forgets that will be summarily shot. Do not make that mistake.

"Page One. Very good news. We now have Fulcrum members in the upper ranks of the nation's intelligence and security agencies. No longer are we recruiting from the rank and file. We are making inroads with men and women with real power. We are gaining ground. Let me run through the list…"

Joe leaned in, repeating the names as they went by. She was old, but she was sharp. She would remember.

The Meeting continued.

ooOoo

Susie Lou was seated beside Ellie at the table in Casey's apartment. He had left them with the keys and codes. They were considering June Thorne and the Intersect.

"Do you think there is any way she could survive this? Come out intact, somehow." Ellie was asking while doodling in her notebook, an old nervous habit from med school.

Susie Lou shrugged. "I don't know. She was not intact from the beginning. Have you looked at her actual psych evals?" Ellie nodded and shuddered. She was so worried about Chuck. The mission was today.

Susie Lou looked at Ellie sympathetically. "She was in serious trouble already. But here's something interesting. Look at the reports she submitted while in Burbank, especially the last ones. They are smoother, more coherent. Her reports on Chuck are less clinical, more...I don't know...personal. I mean, it was just a change over a few days and it is hard to make much of it, but she seemed to be...settling...in Burbank. Somewhat."

"Casey thinks she was interested in Chuck, you know, interested." Susie Lou blushed, thinking of Dan.

"I know. It could be. Although it is hard to tell. Not a woman who would be able to express interest in any normal way. Still, if she was, it might have given her something focal. A...quiet place in her mind. I suspect those were few and far between for her before she got the Intersect."

"Do you think Chuck might be able to...talk to her? Help her?"

Susie Lou shrugged again but with a more obvious pessimism. "I fear the Intersect will have taken over by now. She's likely becoming more machine than woman."

Ellie got a funny look on her face. "Like a woman inside a machine, instead of a machine inside a woman?"

Susie Lou gave Ellie a puzzled glance. "Yes, exactly like that. Where…"

"Oh, God," Ellie said in a whisper, "She's Deathlok!"

"Huh? Wait? Are you talking about the comic book character?"

"Yes. Chuck always liked that character."

"Well, she's like that...and unlike that. But the idea that the woman is trapped in the machine: that's phenomenologically accurate, if metaphysically false."

Ellie shook her head, staring at Susie Lou. "You are a hoot, Susie Lou! I'm so glad you're here."

"Me, too, Ellie," the small woman commented quietly, giving Ellie's unoccupied hand a squeeze.

ooOoo

Sarah was frightened for Joe. She was frightened for Chuck. She was frightened for them all.

This mission had gone sour fast. It was supposed to have been no engagement. She knew what Casey was thinking. Getting in and getting out with Joe was unlikely, at least not without serious injuries or worse. The rain was making everything miserable, making it hard to see. But at least that made them hard to see. So far, they'd encountered no guards. Rain. Mud.

She spoke too soon. Two men in camo rain ponchos stepped out of the trees.

"Don't move!"

Sarah did. She sprang forward, knocking Chuck down on the wet grass. She followed him down and landed on him. She had her gun up before the muddy splash came down, and she fired her silenced pistol. It spit, and one man gasped, falling backward.

Casey had managed to shoot the other. Without a word, understanding each other, she leaped up and grabbed the man she had killed; Casey was dragging the other. They hid them in the higher grass.

Chuck was getting up, his front soaking in muddy water. He looked pale but that might have been the contrast with the mud. At least the mud made him still harder to see, Sarah thought, relief surging through her when she saw him whole. Casey had gotten the ponchos off both men and he put one on, squeezing into it, and handed her the other. He nodded, and they began again toward the end of the house, hoping to get around it and through a rear entrance.

ooOoo

June was near one end of the massive long structure. Two more figures in ponchos were standing near the end, talking and gesturing. One held out a radio and the other shook his head. The one who held out the radio went around the end of the house, shaking the radio as he went. The other man stood, staring after him. June rushed out of the trees. She plunged the knife into the back of the man's neck. He jerked as she pulled the knife free, then stabbed him in the back. He fell. She pulled his poncho over him, and she went on around the end of the house.

The man with the radio was standing in front of a large plastic box. He was holding the lid open, but only a crack, trying to reach inside to get something without allowing too much rain in. June slowed, put her pistol up, shot him. He jerked hard, like lightning had struck him, and the jerk threw the lid back, opening the box. June pushed him in on top of radios and other equipment as she reached him. She pulled the box lid closed over him. She had a clear path to an exit door on the back of the house.

Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer. Her vision seemed preternaturally clear, her hearing acute. Nothing she had done seemed to have taxed her. Each shot had been easy, like a standing shot at a large target on a good day at the range, not a running shot through the mud and downpour. Her breathing was not even labored. The Intersect was more firmly in control each moment. She was losing all sense of herself. There was only Walker. Only the mission. The Intersect did not care about the origin of the mission. The Intersect did not care if it made sense. It cared only about the mission.

Mission. Mission. Mission. June opened the door and walked inside, her shoes squeaking as water oozed from them with each step. She was leaking mud and dirty water.

ooOoo

Sarah grabbed Chuck's hand. His fingers were wrinkled from the rain and water. Hers too. He looked at her and gulped. "I know, Chuck, but we have to save her if we can, and I will always protect you," Sarah whispered, just audible over the rainfall.

"I get it, I do. Just can't ever quite get used to it. Let's save Joe."

They were near one end of the building. No guards were visible. They had a short space to cross to get to the nearest rear exit door. At the far end of the building was a large plastic box, shut. Other than that, nothing was visible. Off in the distance was a pavilion with picnic tables, empty.

Finally, Sarah's comm worked suddenly. She jumped at the voice in her ear. "Repeat. New bogey. In the building. In the building. Three Fulcrum guards down, victims of the bogey. Three more in the treeline behind you…" Crackle. Nothing. Sarah motioned at Chuck and Casey, gesturing to her ear. They shook their heads. They weren't hearing. She held up three fingers. "Three Fulcrum guards left, behind us, in the trees. New player here. Already inside. Taken out three guards."

Chuck paled. "Thorne?" Sarah nodded. "Probably."

In unison, Chuck and Casey: "Shit."

"What do we do?" Chuck's whisper was urgent, hoarse. "Men behind us, Thorne in front of us? We don't have time for tactics, kid. C'mon. We ain't splitting up. We're in this together,"

Casey motioned to the door. Sarah nodded and squeezed Chuck's hand. They went through the door, all three, Casey followed by Sarah and Chuck.

They stepped into a small room. There was a pile of folding chairs in the room in the midst of the nice but bland furnishings. Casey grabbed one and jammed it into the handle of the door, Sarah put her back against the other door, the one leading out of the room, and had her pistol ready. She pushed it open with her back, lowering her gun as she did. The hallway was empty. She spun around and checked behind the door. Empty. She waved for Chuck and Casey to join her and the started down the hallway quickly.

At about the midpoint of the hall's length, there was an opening on the left side. As Sarah got closer, she could see two large, heavy wooden doors. But then she saw Joe, pressed against the wall, looking a little afraid.

"Joe!" Sarah called in a whisper.

Joe, softly: "Sarah? I didn't recognize you in that poncho, with the mud..."

"What are you doing?"

"Listening to the Meeting. They are finishing up. They're watching a film. A recruiting film, I think." Loud, tinny music was blaring, blaring inside the room, upbeat, martial music.

"You heard them?"

Joe smiled and nodded. "And you can walk?"

Joe's smile grew, dancing a step. "It's a miracle!"

Sarah smiled through the grime on her face, but then put her finger to her lips.

"WALKER!"

A howl from the other end of the hallway. Sarah whirled her head. In the distance stood June. She was in a poncho too, dripping mud and water on the floor. She lifted her pistol.

A weight hit Sarah in the back. Chuck. He tackled her to the ground as June's gun fired repeatedly. The shots missed. Sarah heard them hit the wall, just missing Joe. Chuck reached out with his long arm and pulled Joe down too. Casey fired several times, driving June away down the hall. She disappeared through the door on the other end.

Sarah twisted out from under Chuck. Kneeling beside him, she looked at him. "Take June and run. Go! June will chase me! Go!"

"Sarah…" Chuck's voice broke.

"Go! I'll come back to you, Chuck. Go!" Chuck took Joe's hand. Sarah looked at Casey and he nodded to her. Then the three of them ran back down the hallway. Sarah saw them go through the door to the room with the chairs. "I love you, Chuck."

She turned and looked down the hall to where June had last been. The door she had used burst open and June came sprinting down the hall toward Sarah, a knife between her teeth and her pistol up. She reloaded.

Sarah fired. She hit June in the shoulder. June spun around but then was facing Sarah again, still coming, the knife clattering on the floor. Sarah fired again but missed. Jue was close. Sarah stepped to the heavy wooden doors and opened them, running inside.

Inside was Fulcrum's Executive Committee. They were all looking at a movie screen in the room, with pictures of lockstepping men and women all smiling beneath a smiley face Fulcrum logo. Even the bad guys have gone corporate. The music was deafening. As the doors slammed open, the Committee members turned as one to stare at her. Sarah stood there for a split second, water still running off her poncho but her hood down from when Chuck tackled her.

"Sarah...Anderson?"

It was Gretta Garland. Sarah heard June yell her name and she saw a door on the opposite side of the room. She ran toward it. As she did, she heard something strike the wooden floor of the conference room and bounce. Sarah leaped over one of the desks, turning it as she did. There was an explosion. She heard fragments embed themselves in the desk. Then she heard another strike on the floor, and another. Two more explosions. More fragments. Sarah curled into a ball behind the shield.

"Walker!"

Around her, Sarah heard screams and moans. She jumped up and ran toward the door. She heard June yell her name yet again. Then there was another explosion. But Sarah was through the door as it happened.

ooOoo

Chuck had Joe's hand. She was clearly tiring. Without asking, he bent over and put her over his shoulder. He heard her grunt. "Well, and I thought you were spoken for!"

Casey unwedged the metal chair from the door and got his pistol ready. He shoved the door open. There was no one in sight. Chuck smacked his ear, his comm crackled, but he could make nothing out. Casey was motioning for Chuck to follow him. Rain was still falling. More mud.

Chuck wanted to turn around. To help Sarah. But she had sent him away, trusted him to save Joe. He stepped out into the rain. Gunfire erupted and Chuck crouched down, managing to keep Joe on his shoulder. Casey fired twice.

"Hot damn, got two. One down, one winged and on the run. But there's another. C'mon kid, bring granny."

"Hey!" Joe muttered, hanging upside down.

Chuck heard muffled explosions.

They ran toward the front of the house, the lines of cars. Just as they got there, the front doors burst open, slamming back, and Sarah sprinted into view The hood of her poncho was down and she was muddy. Her blonde hair was wet. She went airborne and jumped over the front steps, splash-crunching to a landing in the loose gravel at the edge of the driveway. Her ankle twisted under her, and she fell forward with a loud gasp, her pistol flying from her hand.

The third guard stood up. He had been crouched behind a car.

He fired at Sarah. He missed.

Casey fired at him. He missed.

Another shot. June came through the doors after Sarah. Her gun extended. She had not missed. She had killed the guard.

June fired again and Casey went down before he could take cover.

"Walker," June said Sarah's name as she came down the steps. Sarah tried to scramble for her gun, but June fired again, barely missing. Sarah held still after turning her face toward June. In his panic, Chuck had not looked clearly at June. Following Sarah's gaze, he did. Her poncho was not just wet and dirty as she stood there in the rain, it was ragged, torn and bloody. She was badly injured. Mangled. She was covered in wounds, bleeding all over. It was unclear how she was standing, much less holding her pistol leveled at Sarah's head. Chuck put Joe down on the ground carefully, and June spoke, noticing his movement. She still had on her purple ribbon, now muddy, drenched and crooked on her head.

"Don't do anything stupid, Chuck, or I will kill the old woman and kill you too. Stay where you are." Her gun and her eyes remained trained on Sarah.

June's voice sounded flat, almost metallic. But there was still a hint of her in it.

"Don't do this, June. I know you must be in terrible pain. I know your head must hurt: and I know something about that pain...You know I do. Please don't do this."

ooOoo

The final fragmentation grenade misfired. June had it in her hand and then realized it had armed. She tossed it and dove aside, rolling toward the podium at the front of the room. But when it exploded she was exposed. She had been riddled with fragments.

The Intersect squeezed her adrenaline gland again and she got up and went after Sarah. She vaguely noticed the room. Bodies were everywhere, most mangled beyond immediate recognition. There were a few isolated moans and whimpers. It was a room of death and misery. It was June's life. A movie screen, torn and perforated, showed moving images of people living happy, smiling lives. She was not in the pictures.

Her head was painful beyond description. Now her body screamed from dozens of wounds at once.

Walker. She moved forward. Walker was through the main doors, leading outside. June picked up her pace despite her agony, and followed. As she came through the doors she shot a guard who was going to shoot Walker. No, my mission. Not yours. She shot Casey when she saw him. Can't stop now.

And then she heard Chuck's voice. He was talking to her. Kindly. Talking about pain. Trying to stop her. Trying to save Walker. She liked Chuck. She wished she were the kind of woman who could say things like that: "I like you, Chuck." But she was the kind who would proposition him and never be able to say anything about the feelings that might have prompted it. 'Like', 'love'...words for other people, other women.

The pain of the fragments was so bad that it, along with the sound of Chuck's voice, had given June back herself-the Intersect was there, doing its thing, but she had a moment of time, a few inches of space. She glanced quickly at Chuck's face, wet, muddy and terrified. An old woman was on her knees beside him. She looked back at Walker, facing her, seated awkwardly on the ground, fear in her face. It struck June: she looks like my mother. A softer version, younger than June's mother was the one time June saw her. She played with me and hugged me. Her voice was so full of pain.

June's gun hand began to tremble. How many people did I kill today, Momma? I know what they call me: Calamity June. I know what they say: Psycho bitch. Scorched earth. I inspire only fear. But you weren't afraid of me, Momma. You were so afraid, but not of me.

The moment ended, the space closed, the Intersect demanded. Eliminate the target. Kill Walker. June tried to resist. The rain was still falling. Thunder clapped, lightning flashed.

Eliminate the target. June fought the Intersect. Her mind went into full meltdown, radioactive slag. You must succeed in the mission. Success. Failure. Momma, succeeding at failing. Bleeding out. With a final desperate act of will, June turned her silenced pistol around, touching its end to own her forehead. Success. Failure. Succeed at failing. I inspire only fear. I fear myself. I have spent my life bleeding out. Momma!

New target acquired. Eliminate. She pulled the trigger.

ooOoo

Cleaners, teams, ambulances. June's shot went through Casey's shoulder. It was a perfect shot, on the edge of his body armor but missing the joint. He was bleeding and hurting, but he would live. Sarah had taken her poncho off. Chuck helped her. She stretched it over June's lifeless body, the gaping wound in her head. She got rid of the Intersect. Chuck stood with her in the rain, gazing down at the enshrouded corpse.

"Did she lose or did she win?" Chuck asked quietly as agents moved around them.

Sarah looked at him. "Who knows? Not sure what winning and losing looked like to her."

To dwell is not an activity like any other but a determination of man in which he realizes his true essence. He needs a firm dwelling place if he is not to be dragged along helplessly by the stream of time.
-Otto Bollnow, Lived Space

Bryce regained consciousness. He was in a dingy motel room. He looked at his watch. Oh, damn.

ooOoo

Later, that evening

Joe had been debriefed. She had remembered what she heard. In DC, the shocks were already being felt. Arrests were being made. Most of the Fulcrum Executive Committee was dead, torn apart by fragments in the conference room. Getta Garland was one of the ones who died. There were still parts of file folders intact. Not just names, but plans. Joe supplied what was missing. In a few hours, a few days at most, Fulcrum would be a bad memory with a stupid name.

Casey was in a New Orleans hospital, recovering. Chuck was on the bed in his hotel room, freshly showered. Sarah was wrapped around him, freshly showered too. They had washed the day from each other, then made love to each other in the warm water as it cascaded down on them.

Bryce had shown up and then had to undergo a lengthy video conference with Beckman. He had nothing to say for himself beyond a muttered apology. The conference had clearly been unpleasant. He had gone back to his room, no longer the Andersons. Just his.

Sarah unwound herself from Chuck and sat up. She looked him in the eye. "Chuck, my real name is Sam. And...I want to tell you some things, about my Dad and my time with him. About my last mission before Burbank. Budapest." Chuck sat up to listen.

ooOoo

Two days later

They were getting ready to leave New Orleans. Ready to head to Burbank. Heading home. Sarah held Chuck's hand as they entered Casey's hotel room. He would be released in another day or two. That was good. The staff was terrified of him and he was getting restless.

Inside, they found Casey sitting up, laughing. Joe was seated in her wheelchair beside his bed, laughing too.

They both looked up and smiled as Sarah and Chuck came in.

"Well," Joe said, "look what the cat drug in. I didn't expect you two to be vertical for another few days at least." Joe's eyes twinkled and Casey guffawed.

"You should have the impossible job of trying to keep these two apart," he growled.

Joe shrugged. "No need for them to be apart. Lots of need for them to be together."

Chuck pulled a chair to Sarah and she sat down. He remained standing. "So, Joe, did they...find him?"

Joe's face clouded over. "Yes. Entombed in the damn fountain. I've been eating breakfast beside him for a long time and didn't know it." She sighed. "He brought it on himself...took that viper to his chest."

"What about you?"

"Well, I have plenty of money of my own, and as Gretta's next of kin, and with the help of your...what's her name, Beckman?...I will likely keep the house and so on. Movers are there now, getting Gretta's trash out of the place. I'm going to re-decorate. Casey here was giving me some suggestions."

Chuck gave Casey a look. Casey shrugged, but only with his good shoulder. 'Hey, I don't read Garden and Gun for nothing."

"Do you think you could get to Burbank sometime soon, Joe. Maybe in a few months?" Sarah.

Joe gave Sarah a knowing smile. "Sure. I'm still getting stronger, and I hope by the time...that happens to be out of this contraption for good."

"You know?" Sarah asked.

Joe glanced at Casey and winked. "I've heard."

"You know?" Chuck asked Casey.

"Kid, you two are either going to be dead or married. Never was any third option. And you ain't dead, goddamnit." Casey smiled.

ooOoo

One month later, Burbank

Everyone was at Casey's apartment. Chuck and Sarah had moved into an apartment in the complex that mysteriously came open. Susie Lou and Dan had a place in an apartment complex nearby. But all were now in Casey's apartment, including Ellie and Devon. Beckman was on the monitor.

"Chuck, I've talked with Sarah, and I know the two of you have talked. She has been transferred to the NSA. You are now an NSA employee too, although you have no fitting job title. You are on the books as an analyst, like Dan here, who as you know has been relocated to Burbank. He will be the team's actual analyst.

"You all are my new team, the Intersect team." Beckman looked around the room but came back to Chuck "But you, Chuck, are mine only in a manner of speaking. You are no one's property.

"You are going to run the team, choose your missions, decide what you will and will not do. I will supply you with support, funds...advice, if you want it," she smiled and everyone laughed, "but I am going to trust you and this team to do all the good you can. Ellie and Susie Lou and Devon (he's the team physician, by the way, though he's keeping his job at the hospital) are now working on two problems. How to make sure that the Intersect does you no permanent harm for as long as you have it, and how to get it out of your head if that is possible. Only you are the Intersect; only you know how to be the Intersect. I'm going to stop trying to tell you that. I trust you, Chuck.

"If Ellie and Susie Lou can come up with a way to get it out, and that's what you want, then that's what we will do. You've earned the right to whatever life you want. If that happens, you'll be, as Casey might say, honorably discharged. Until then, I hope we can together make the world a little safer."

Chuck took Sarah's hand. He looked at her. Although Casey knew, and Ellie clearly suspected, they still had not told anyone about their engagement. Bryce knew, but he had been recalled to DC, to meet the new Director and to be given a new mission. Chuck wanted to wait to make it official until he had asked properly, and given Sarah a ring. She smiled at him, beautiful, joyful, confident.

"That...that all sounds fine. Thank you, General. Really. Thanks."

"You are welcome. As of right now, cloaked work is underway to convert the Buy More's sub-basement into a base of operations. In a few weeks, it should be ready to be used. Questions?"

Casey cleared his throat. "So we're stuck with Morgan, and with Jeff and Lester?"

"They really are good camouflage, Casey. No one is going to put 'intelligence' and those folks together. Beckman out."

"Shit."

ooOoo

Casey was driving around Burbank, glad to be back. He had gotten the Crown Vic from the repair shop. All signs of Loretta's attack were gone. He felt a little hungry, so he pulled into a promising-looking greasy spoon. He took a stool at the counter. A tall, heavy-set brunette took his order, a slice of pie and a cup of coffee. He looked around. He felt good. Beckman had listened to him about the team. Yes, it was a big circle of trust, and yes, it included Captain Awesome, and that could cause trouble down the road. But it was a real team, run by a good man and a good woman. It felt good to be a part of it. He felt better than he had in a long, long time. Even his shoulder was loosening up, feeling less achy.

The big waitress made a quick turn when another customer called for her, and she knocked Casey's coffee cup over. She apologized, grabbed a towel from beneath the bar, and began to wipe it up. Another waitress, younger and small, with wavy auburn hair, came to help her. Casey looked at the new waitress' face. He had seen that face before, or a version of it. He had loved that face before, or a version of it. Oh, my God. She noticed his stare and smiled at him. Her name tag read "Alex". That could not be a coincidence. Casey extended his hand and realized it was shaking. He willed it to stop. "Hi! I'm John."

She shook his hand. "Alex. Glad to meet you."

ooOoo

Morgan was pissed. Chuck's new place did not have a Morgan Door. He would have to use the front one like everyone else. Morgan was sure something was up with Chuck. And with Sarah. Not just between them, although they were hopelessly lost in each other. No, something else was going on. And Casey, he was part of it too. Why had Chuck disappeared for a few days? Why had Casey disappeared at the same time? What happened to his shoulder? Where had Sarah gone? Why had she left? No one would give him a straight answer. He decided it was time to get a Subway sandwich (since stakeouts made him hungry) and hide in the apartment complex's bushes. He knew the bushes well. He had watched Ellie from them for years. You know, she's right, that is creepy. But this was different. A puzzle. He was going to get to the bottom of it somehow.

ooOoo

Sarah was on the couch. The pizza box was empty. The movie credits were rolling. She was looking forward to a makeout session on the couch, one that would trail clothes all the way to the bedroom. Chuck was gazing at her in that way he did and she was feeling warm all over and...damp...in special places. She made herself concentrate though. She wanted to ask a question.

"Chuck, why didn't you ask Bryce about Jill? Didn't you want to know what he had to say for himself about that?"

Chuck looked surprised. "No, I guess I didn't. Bryce and I were never friends in the way I thought. We were frat brothers but not really friends. I liked him; he liked me. But I don't know that Bryce can have friends in the sense I thought we were friends…"

"Ok. I get that. But still, why not ask about Jill?"

He looked at her and gave a brief explanation. "Because I have you."

She felt flush, head to toe, with delight and desire. She leaned into him. It was time for the making-out to commence. "Good answer, Chuck."

"You are always my answer, Sarah."

ooOoo

Bryce carefully placed his suit on the couch of his new hotel room in Mexico City. It was encased in clear, thin plastic. The suit and the room made him think of New Orleans. Of Sarah. Of Chuck. Of Sarah and Chuck. He sighed, twisting his lips to the side of his face.

I screwed up.

He went down to the bar. He looked at his watch. Maybe he could find some company for the evening. It was time for James Bond.

ooOoo

Chuck was sprawled on the bed, snoring quietly. Sarah was beside him, her body in contact with his. She looked up at the ceiling, feeling relaxed and warm and comfortable. He was still the Intersect. She was still technically a spy. Fulcrum was gone, along with any known immediate threat to Chuck or the team. There would be new threats, she knew, and the team, bigger, was more vulnerable. But they were a team. She and Chuck were partners. No one would hurt him as long as she drew breath. And she knew he would never hurt her. They would find a way. She was still technically a spy. But a spy in love, a spy at home. It struck her that 'Omaha' was nearly an anagram for 'home'. It had been for her. She had left her home and found it.

A/N2 That's that. Thanks, folks. A short Postlude to follow. Love to hear your thoughts.