A/N: Again a chapter ahead of schedule. It's inspiring to read the reviews and see how much traffic the story gets. So again a huge thank you to the readers and followers.

Joe-El: I seriously doubt I would follow the amnesia arc. I might do something even more evil *insert evil laugh* like go for a true happy ending.

Nabla: I hadn't noticed that I cut a corner there, and neither did my ghost reader who is now permanently residing in a bunker. Nah, just kidding, she's awesome for putting up with me. I did cut it short there, but I always felt that Casey and Sarah got along too quickly so I'm dragging that bit between Chuck and Casey out a little longer. I do agree that it could've been a bit longer in Chapter 4.

Nomadic Nerd: Did you by chance steal my notepad with the chapter 5 outlines? Or were you simply onto me?

As always, reviews are most welcome and very much appreciated... Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own 'Chuck'.

His brows drew together in a deep frown; it was nothing like Sam to be this late for work. The odd few minutes now and then, but even that was a rare occasion. Immediately he began to wonder. For as far as he knew she had not come home last night, her bed still made when he went to check in on her before he had left for work.

"Oh, you naughty, naughty girl," he whispered with a huge, mischievous grin when the most logical explanation came to mind.

He knew that his best friend was not the kind of woman for a one night stand. She held higher standards than that, but maybe with the right guy and under the right circumstances it was not entirely unfeasible. It had been quite the surprise yesterday when she had asked him to help her pick out an outfit for a simple dinner date with the Bartowskis.

"Who's a naughty girl?" Lester asked behind him.

He nearly jumped a foot in the air and whirled around: "Sheesh, Lester, and Jeff," he grumbled shakily when he was confronted with the Buy More's terrible twosome. "None of your business, by the way."

"It's Sam, isn't it?" Jeff inquired with a weird eye roll. "I knew that girl is nasty."

He balled his fists at his sides, ready to strike at the next bad comment. By now, after working there for five years, he should have been used to Jeff and Lester, their shenanigans and grossly inappropriate remarks, but this was Sam, his friend and their colleague. Besides he regarded it as his sole prerogative to tease her mercilessly.

"Hey, guys," Sam startled the three of them.

"Well, well, well," he said in a stern fatherly manner. "And where have you been, young lady?"

She lifted an eyebrow sardonically,and gave him a look that told him that it was none of his business. It came as a relief since that was nothing out of the ordinary. After being friends with Sam for nearly two decades he knew that feelings and all things related were not her favorite topic to talk about. In fact if she could avoid it in any way or form, she most definitely would.

"Sam! Get in here!" Big Mike bellowed from the door opening of his office.

"Someone's in trouble," Jeff was no stranger to stating the obvious.

"Later," Sam sighed wearily and trudged in the direction of the manager's office.

Another deep frown creased his brows and he tilted his head a little, watching her curiously. Whatever happened last night, it had impacted her greatly, and so far he did not think it was a great thing. He would need to have a word with this Chuck Bartowski.

'First things first,' he thought as he pulled into the small parking lot next to the Wienerlicious.

After making sure Sam had arrived at the Buy More safe and sound, where Casey would take over guard duty, he had decided the next logical step was to go and introduce himself to his future supervisor. It was just stalling, to put off the one conversation he really did not want to have, but it would be inevitable.

"Who would call their kid Scooter?" He wondered aloud.

The more he had thought about it, the more he was convinced that Director Graham had arranged this on purpose, if only to remind him of his place within the Agency. The understanding between the Director and him was best described as shaky.

As long as he had had a fully operating Intersect in his head, the Director had been very forthcoming in his efforts, but from the moment the Intersect had gone into a state of being suppressed, the man had done his very best to remind him that he was not a field agent, only an analyst. Even if he had been the most important part of Project Omaha.

Now that he had gone against the Director's orders and wishes, and not for the first time, it would not remain without repercussions. Thus this cover job at the Wienerlicious, demeaning and preposterous was a complete waste of his talents and college degree.

Nevertheless he was not entirely convinced that he would want to trade with Agent Casey either; he had worked at this Buy More one summer before he had left for Stanford, and to say that the store's staff was dysfunctional was actually a compliment. Yet if he was given the choice, he would pick the Buy More because it would match his skill set slightly better. It had absolutely nothing to do with Sam working there.

Big Mike's office always smelled of coffee and pastries, a welcome scent this very moment. She remained standing in front of his desk in a fashion best described as the civilian version of parade rest.

"Any reason as to why you're this late?" Big Mike asked before he took a bite of his donut.

"Sorry, I lost track of time this morning," she replied apologetically. "Next thing I was running a little late."

He seemed to ponder her answer and then nodded: "Bryce told me that you had a bit of an accident yesterday and hit your head, so I'll cut you some slack this time, but don't make it a habit. I can't afford having to fire my best employee."

Fired? No matter how sad the job circumstances were, she could not afford to lose her job. Not with rent to pay and food to buy. Of course Bryce would chip in generously if she was a little short on money but she did not want to leech off him.

"In fact," Big Mike continued when she kept quiet. "I want you to apply for the assistant manager's position. It'll be between Harry and you, but people like you a lot more, and for some reason the crazies listen to you. So it should be a shoe-in."

"I don't know, Big Mike."

She managed to keep the snort of disbelief down. A lot had changed in the time span of thirty-six hours and she still had to wrap her head around the majority of it. She was still trying to understand how she had gone from a seemingly nobody to government property, and why Zondra had picked her.

Feeling she had been left no other choice, she had agreed to cooperate when and if she could, but that did not mean she had to like it. The few flashes she had suffered so far had left her debilitated and disorientated with a slight headache in their wake.

"I'll think about it," she offered upon seeing the look of despair on her boss' face.

He broke out in a big smile: "Good... Now go train the new guy."

The conversation was clearly over as Big Mike returned his attention to his donuts and tabloid. She left the office, only to find Casey waiting for her near the printer appliances. He gave her a smug look while crossing his arms.

"Oh boy," she groaned tiredly.

He suddenly snarled at them both. The Indian guy squealed like a frightened piglet and hid behind his weird friend. They had been circling him like vultures ever since he had come out of the break room, as if he was a fresh corpse and that was something he did not like.

"Huh," he chortled amused at their reaction while he scanned the store for the asset.

She was nowhere in sight. Maybe she had felt too poorly and had decided to take the rest of the day off? If so, he would blame that moron Bartowski for it. Why the hell had the CIA nerd decided that it was a good idea to be so blatantly honest with her? The woman was nothing more than an asset, albeit probably the most important in the world right now. To be used at present,and to be burned when the operation was over.

By that time that bleeding heart Bartowski would most likely come up with a hundred reasons and an equal amount of excuses why not to follow through on the termination order. He bared his teeth in a dark grin; Bleeding Heart Bartowski, he had to remember that one.

The idiot should have remained chained to a desk until he fully understood what it meant to be a spy. Honesty, like Agent Bartowski had displayed last night, was a deadly sin in their game of shadows.

Nevertheless, in spite of the unorthodox method, the CIA agent had managed to gain the asset's trust and had gotten her to cooperate with them fully. He hated to admit it, but his unwanted coworker had argued a very strong case for the asset's freedom and wellbeing with him, and with their superiors. That the Intersect would be useless locked away in a bunker. That millions in taxpayer money would have been wasted. Then salvaging the situation by suggesting to put the asset to good use.

He still had his doubts; He had to work with what and half what. It could be worse though. He let out a deep growl, faking a lunge at the two store lunatics who ran into each other in fright and ended up on their asses on the floor.

"Casey!" Sam exclaimed annoyed, giving him a look of complete disbelief.

He was used to dealing with very obnoxious people, like General Beckman, Director Graham and even Morgan during one of his Red Bull detoxes, but this Scooter character was of an entirely different level. It was the last piece of evidence he needed to know that this had been the Director's revenge.

Scooter dropped a binder on the table and then placed a hand on top of it while looking solemnly as if it were some kind of holy book.

"This is the Wienerlicious employee instruction manual. Read it. Know it. Apply it," Scooter told him in a stern voice.

He had to be kidding, right? After taking a deep breath, he took the binder and flipped through its contents. Whomever had written this had to be a stickler for the rules. The most absurd things were covered. Looking at his future supervisor, he had the sinking feeling that he was facing the author.
"Before your first shift," Scooter added dryly.

Surely he was joking. However so far Scooter had shown a complete lack of humor, so that meant he was serious about this. The muscles in his upper arms tensed a little; there was no way he was going to read, know and apply all of this nonsense for some cover job. He had more important matters to attend to, such as Sam's safety.

In fact, he could not really care that it was not allowed to wait on giant, intellectually superior, fluffy bunnies after they invaded earth, and that he should politely ask them to leave the premises because of health code violations. The writer of this manual had some serious mental issues.

"You wrote this, didn't you?" He asked while he tapped on the cover of the binder.

"Yes, I did," Scooter answered proudly.

"Your parents did a real number on you, didn't they?" He followed up.

"Yes, they did."

She had an extremely hard time keeping her thoughts together, let alone organized. They seemed to wander all over the place. Yet it appeared like there was only one thing on her mind: the brunet with the warm, kind eyes of which the color ranged from amber to forest green depending on the angle of light. As if uploading the Intersect by accident was not enough, fate had thrown her best friend's little brother into the mix as well.

She scanned the store for her trainee. It was turning out to be quite the challenge to train Casey and already she had stepped in to prevent worse. Especially Jeff and Lester thought it necessary to torment the new guy, even after the trashcan and the deep freezer incident. She had to give it to them; they were very persistent, but if it was wise or healthy what they were doing was an entirely different matter.

Luckily Jeff and Lester had ceased their attempts to haze Casey and were skulking around on the other side of the store.

"Excuse me, Miss?" A young woman drew her attention.

"How can I help you?" She asked with her standard Buy More smile.

"I'm here about this," the woman said, her cell phone in her hand. "Can you fix it?"

Happy with the diversion, she took the cell phone and examined it: "Absolutely. Just give me a few minutes."

He knew that he should feel bad about his little act of mischief but he simply could not. At least he had changed the sign from 'open' to 'closed' when he had left the Wienerlicious. That had to account for something.

After taking a deep breath and putting a measured smile on his face, he approached the Nerd Herd desk and the asset: "Hey, Sam."

Her head shot up and she nearly dropped what she was working on. He caught sight of Casey in his periphery vision and smirked. The gruff agent looked ready to kill the first person to bother him. He frowned when he saw two more familiar faces. 'Isn't that Jeff Barns? And Harry Tang?'

"Uh, hi, Chuck," she stammered nervously.

He leaned casually over the desk and looked at the cell phone she was holding.

"Ah, the infamous IntelliCell," he said with a genuine smile. "It has a little screw that pops loose right in the back there. "

"Hmm-mmm," she nodded, digging up a small screwdriver to tighten the screw. "Anything I can do for you?"

"We need to talk... In private."

"Just a sec," she mumbled before she checked the unwilling phone and smiled when it worked again. "And done... Thanks."

She checked the store, her gaze coming to rest on a secluded area: "Come with me."

He followed her to the home theatre room and made sure that the doors were locked. Casey came storming up, but this was not part of his mission. He shook his head at him which resulted in Casey baring his teeth, ready to snarl but thought better of it. The NSA agent then turned around and went back to his section. He closed the curtains for a little more privacy.

"So what did you want to talk about?" She wasted no time.

"It's about our cover," he began.

She sent him a confused frown: "Cover?"

"Casey's obviously no salesman," he smiled. "But it's his job to keep an eye on you during work hours... And after hours, well... That's the thing we need to talk about it... They want us to pose as girlfriend and boyfriend."

It was clear to say that she was close to freaking out, though if he had been in her shoes he would probably have been less composed.

"W-W-What?" She stammered. "G-Girlfriend and boyfriend? And who's they? The NSA and the CIA?"

He nodded in agreement, waiting patiently for her to catch up. It was not a scenario he would have picked, but General Beckman and Director Graham had been pretty clear that since he had already developed a bond with the asset, he would be the one to keep her contained.

"Pretend to be a couple?.. With you?.. I can't do that, Chuck... I'm not a spy," she sputtered.

"It'll be fine, Sam. Just follow my lead. It should only be for a short time anyway," he said in his most reassuring voice. "Until the Intersect's out."

He could tell from the look on her face that she was thinking about something but was uncertain if she could ask.

"Talk to me, Sam," he encouraged her.

"This cover thing, uh-, the fake relationship, does it include pda?" She asked, a bright blush creeping up to her cheeks. "Sex?" She added in a small voice.

"Some pda, since we'll have to sell it, but sex would be a breach of protocol and very unprofessional," he answered, somewhat relieved that he could use professionalism as an excuse since protocol was not something he was really big on.

Worry rose when she swallowed the wrong way and started to cough. What was he to do now? A real boyfriend or even just a friend would pat her on the beck, but he was neither one and he had no idea how she would react. Still, his helpful nature took over. He let out a silent sigh of relief when she did not bolt, shrug him off or hit him. It was a start.

"Devon, can you get it?" She called looking up from the magazine she had been skimming through when there was a knock on the front door.

"Sorry, babe, tank's empty," her boyfriend replied while he stretched out on the couch even more.

She rolled her eyes, put the magazine aside and went to get the door. Her eyes widened in surprise when she found her little brother on her doorstep. He had not said goodbye but she had figured that he had gone back to Bakersfield, so to find him in front of her was astonishing.

"Chuck," she breathed as she pulled him into one of her happy bear hugs.

"Hey, sis," he groaned.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, eying the suitcase.

"I was wondering if I could crash here for a couple of days."

She squinted at him in wonder. Surely there had to be a catch.

"Last night I realized that I don't see you enough, so I took a few sick days to hang out with you and Devon," he explained.

Her eyes narrowed even more. Ever since her little brother had gone to work as an analyst for the CIA the job had come first. Something was definitely up. A tidal wave of excitement welled up in the pits of her stomach, and she was almost unable to restrain herself when she thought of the reason why he might be so eager to visit.

"So it's not Sam?" She inquired with a shaky voice of suppressed exuberance.

Immediately Chuck looked extremely uncomfortable. She bit down hard on her lower lip when she was almost unable to keep in the squeal of happiness. He did not contradict her, so that had to be it.

"I knew it... I knew it... That once I got the two of you together, you'd hit it off."

"You caught me there," he admitted with a smile. "Just... don't get ahead of yourself, sis. I know you and if I don't stop you, the next thing you'll be doing is looking at tablecloth designs for the wedding."

She glared at him good-naturedly and gave him a soft push on the shoulder. Chuck knew her too well; in situations like this, when her excitement threatened to get the better of her, she tended to go overboard.

"So can I stay?"

The perfect opportunity to tease him and make him even more uncomfortable, and she had to let it go to waste or he would immediately prove that he was right. To avoid a waterfall of words coming from her mouth, she simply grinned at him and nodded.

Just a few minutes before he had gotten a text message that he had to report in immediately, with his colleague. As luck would have it, he had found the moron in the courtyard.

"H-Ho-How?!" General Beckman stammered furiously on-screen.

It was plain to see that the General was beside herself with anger and had a hard time coming up with the right words without laying an f-bomb carpeting. He looked at his neighbor. At least the idiot had the decency and the smarts to look just as ashamed as he was.

"Agent Bartowski, you tranqed your supervisor? What did he ever do to you? And Major Casey, it is not proper action to stuff two coworkers in a trash can and a deep freezer."

He was barely able to fight off the smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Sorry, ma'am," Bartowski took the lead. "It was an accident."

Somehow he doubted that. A goodie two shoes like Agent Bartowski would not tranq someone without a perfectly good reason.

"I expected a lot more from you, the both of you," the General continued her angry rant.

"Sorry, ma'am. It was an accident?" He repeated his colleague's words.

It was nothing of the kind. In fact it had been purely intentional, with Jeff and Lester stalking him like prey. Sam had been busy with a customer when he had seen his chance to set the record straight with the Buy More village idiots.

"What am I to do with the two of you? Both fired within the day, and quite possibly law suits in the near future. What were you thinking?"

Agent Bartowski kept quiet and he decided to follow his example. General Beckman did not need any more antagonizing, and he did not want to end up receiving the worst possible assignments for the rest of his career. Yet it felt satisfyingly wonderful to have stuffed Lester in the trashcan and Jeff in the deep freezer. The latter was so strange that he had asked to close the lid again after Sam had ordered him to release him.

The General remained silent for a long time, glaring from Bartowski to him and back, apparently thinking about the appropriate course of action against her rebelling team.

"Fine," she finally hissed. "We will give you another chance. Major Casey, you are to take Agent Bartowski's job at the Wienerlicious. Agent Bartowski, you will get the job at the Buy More."

"Yes, ma'am," they said simultaneously.

"And, gentlemen, try not to screw up this time," she warned them in a manner that could not be misunderstood.