A/N: Because of some dental problems, which cost me 3 days to recover from, I have to admit that I'm relieved that I got this chapter done by my own set deadline. Just one more chapter to 'butcher' in the "Helicopter"-arc before really starting on Sam's slow but steady transition to Sarah Walker. So far all I did was set up the chessboard with the pieces.
Again: a huge thank you to all the readers, the followers and the reviewers!
Shutupnkissme313: The faulty suppression will come back to haunt Chuck from time to time, especially if I choose to be evil.
JustMyLuckiness: Thank you.
fezzywhigg: Slowly working towards their interaction ;)
Dragon X Avalon: Thank you, and I'll try.
As always, reviews are most welcome and very much appreciated... Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own 'Chuck'.
It felt like someone had just pulled the rug from under her. The world came crashing down around her.
"I'm really sorry, Sam," Chuck said in a sincere voice.
How could he be sorry? For all she knew he had been the one responsible for the bombing. Or Casey. Either one of them could be the killer, and she could be next. Nevertheless the worst part was that the Intersect, the bane of her existence at present time, was not coming out soon, if at all. She had cherished hope that this whole ordeal, this whole turning her life upside down would have been over soon.
Torn between anger, sadness and disappointment, she took a few deep breaths, and schooled her face to a neutral expression. Her shift at the Buy More had only just started, and she would be damned if she left early. Her sense of duty dictated it.
For a second she let her emotions resurface, and sent him an icy glare that should tell him to stay the hell away from her the rest of the day. He gave her a single nod in response, and went to help a customer with a broken video camera.
He pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and searched through the phone book. This had gone long enough, and now it was time to intervene. Remembering , how he had felt after the first upload, how little he had slept and how delirious he had become, he pushed the dial button.
"Chuck! My main man, what's up? What's cooking?" Morgan chirped on the other end of the line.
"Hey, Morgan," he smirked at his friend's enthusiasm.
"How are things down south?"
"Taking longer that I had expected," he paused for a moment to formulate his request. "Buddy, I need you to do me a favor."
"Anything, Chuck. Just name it, you got it."
"You're bored, aren't you, buddy?"
"Out of my mind... Everyone around here is so damn serious all the time. All work and no play makes Morgan a dull boy. So what can I do for you?"
"I need you to make a call to the Burbank Buy More and order an offsite install."
"Dude, you've only worked there for a day, and you're playing hooky... already?"
He sighed slightly annoyed, knowing that Morgan was only teasing him: "I wouldn't be asking you to do this if it wasn't important."
Morgan laughed amused: "I know... Just messing with you."
"Use a hidden number. Order the install and ask for Sam," he instructed his friend.
"Install... Sam... Got it. Just gimme a few minutes."
"Thanks, buddy."
"Anything else?"
"Wanna come down for the weekend and hang out at the arcades?"
"Hell yes! I'll see you in a couple!"
"Don't forget to make the call!" He reminded his friend, hopefully just in time when he got the disconnected sound, knowing how Morgan's mind worked when he got excited.
He needed to get Sam out of here; she looked ready to crash but was simply too stubborn to call it quits for the day, so he decided that she needed protecting from herself. If she went down out cold just like that, there would no doubt be a lot of questions and quite possibly another visit to the hospital. The 'offsite install' would give him the perfect opportunity to take her home and watch over her. He pondered if he should tell his NSA colleague and decided against it. The clues indicated that Casey was not the bomber, but he could not afford to be wrong about it.
"Sam!" Big Mike bellowed for the third morning in a row. "Offsite install! One-four-two, Euclid. Take Bartowski!"
This was even better than he had hoped for. At least now he did not have to trick her into letting him tag along, though the glacial look on her face told him there was nothing to gloat about. It was Big Mike's order, and that was it.
"So... Sam?" She inquired curiously, easily sidestepping her little brother who was turning out to be more of a nuisance than a help in the kitchen.
"What about her?" He countered innocently while he stole a piece of bread.
"Chuck!" She chastised him as she slapped at his hand. "You're going to ruin your appetite."
Not all too uncommon, she had decided to have a spontaneous dinner party and had enlisted her brother to help her out. Though so far he had gotten more in the way than anything else, but with Devon out on his bicycle, it gave her the perfect chance to hear Chuck out before the guests would arrive.
"Sorry, mom," he quipped with a sheepish grin.
"Just curious about where things stand with you two," she elaborated.
He heaved an exasperated sigh: "We're taking things slow?"
She nodded slowly: "Good... So... Is she your girlfriend now?"
"Girlfriend?" He coughed. "Does it really have to have a name already?"
Her answer was a simple shrug of her shoulders before she slapped at his hand again.
"I guess," he conceded.
She clasped her hands together and looked at him with a huge grin on her face.
"Sis, can you stop it already?"
"Stop what?" She played the innocence card, finding it hard to control her rapidly increasing excitement.
Her little brother had a new girlfriend, one she definitely approved of, and not that female dog equivalent Jill Roberts. If she had been paying attention to Chuck, she could have seen the glint of mischief appear in his eyes.
"I know you, Ellie. If it were up to you, we'd have had the bed ceremony already," he smirked.
"That's... That's just... gross," she nearly gagged, hitting him on the back of the head.
"Ow!"
It had been his intention, to get her off their backs, she realized all of a sudden and she smacked him on the back of the head again for good measure.
"Sis, cut it out!" He laughed warmly, dodging another hit.
It had been a few years since he had spent so much time in the kitchen, even cooking had always been his secret favorite pastime between missions. He could only hope that the cupcakes would turn out just as well as the mini quiches. Both, of course, were laced with micro bots for easy tracking. One could never know when that would come in handy.
It had been very nice of the Bartowski sister to invite him over for the small dinner party tonight when he had run into her this morning. So after ending his shift at the Wienerlicious early, most of the time the place was deserted, he had gone over to the Buy More to get all he needed, only to learn that the asset and the moron had left hours earlier on an offsite install call and had yet to return.
After racing down to the apartment complex, he had found the obnoxious agent sitting near the fountain with a bearded imp, talking about sandwiches and deserted islands. He had grabbed the tall idiot by the upper arm and had pulled him aside.
With teeth bared in a dark growl, he had offered to rearrange his partner's face if Bartowski did not tell him what the hell was going on and why he had not been informed of this plan.
Bleeding Heart had told him that the asset had looked extremely close to crashing and to avoid any unnecessary attention and questions, he had quickly devised a plan to get her out of there. So he had come up with the fake offsite install.
He had to give it to the kid; Bartowski was pretty damn smart, for an idiot.
The asset had been past exhaustion, and had even passed out on the drive to the complex, so the moron had carried her into her apartment and had put her to bed. He had been reading up on status reports until his friend Morgan had shown up.
Still, it did not sit well with him that numbnuts had not informed him of this plan at all. Did Bartowski really think he was the one who killed Dr. Zarnow? Was that why?
Most of his short shift he had been trying to make sense of the crime. There were a few things that did not add up, but his only suspect remained Agent Bartowski, with means and motive present.
The CIA-nerd was known for his reluctance to kill, and he certainly was not a stone cold killer like him. Unless. The whole kindness act was exactly that, an act, a ruse to have his targets lower their guard. If that were so, it meant that Bartowski was far more dangerous than he had anticipated on.
It also meant that he would have to grab the asset at the earliest convenience without making a scene and secure her by dropping her in a bunker at an undisclosed location. However, he would have to cause a rift between the asset and the rival agent first.
A wry smile formed on his face when he checked his cell phone and saw that General Beckman had come through once more. She had supplied him with a trigger name and some information on the event. As he stood repeating the name to memorize it, the timer of the oven alerted him that the cupcakes were done.
"Sam? Sammie, wake up, hun?" Someone sounding suspiciously like Bryce shook her by the shoulder.
"Bryce?" She mumbled in a sleepy whine to verify the intruder's identity.
"Uh huh," he confirmed. "Sleeping on the job, Sam? Really, I had never ever expected that of you," he added teasingly.
She was utterly confused; the last thing she remembered was getting in Chuck's car. Her heart began to pound wildly in her chest. What had happened? Had he drugged her? Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a start, wide awake now.
A quick glance down told her that she was still in her Nerd Herd getup, minus her black trainers. Relief settled in and she felt herself relax considerably.
"Com'on, Sunshine, get up and get changed. We've been invited for dinner."
"Ellie?"
"Who else?" He chuckled. "Oh, I ran into our neighbor John. He wanted to ask you something before going over. So you might want to do that first, after you've become presentable of course," he added with a wink.
"Of course," she sighed.
She still felt exhausted and if it were up to her she would rather change into her PJs instead. Which would be a sure way to have Ellie bust down her door, drag her out of bed, and to the dinner table. A deep groan of annoyance rose from her chest.
She was not sure if she wanted to face her fake boyfriend in Smurfette pajamas, so she got up and wandered into her closet. Not that she was really going to bother changing into something special, just something simple, since it meant nothing anyway.
About ten minutes later she stood outside Casey's apartment waiting for the gruff NSA agent to open the door.
"Come in, Sam," he said in a friendly manner which had her look curiously at him. "Appearances," he added in a soft grunt, taking a step back so she could enter and he could close the door.
She nodded in understanding: "Bryce said that you wanted to ask me something?"
Now it was his turn to nod: "Right... I take it that Agent Bartowski told you about doctor Zarnow's unfortunate accident."
"He did."
"Tell me, Sam, what do you really know about Chuck, huh?" He began his attempt to wreck the bond between the asset and that insufferable Bartowski. "Think. He's CIA, worked with Zondra. She was rogue. Maybe he is too? He found you in L.A.-"
"Because Devon told him Ellie took me to Westside Medical," she interjected.
"But he couldn't grab you because there were bystanders. So he had to wait his chance. Dr. Zarnow screwed that up. He could pull those secrets out of your head, then he'd lose the Intersect, so he had to act fast. Take Zarnow out of the equation, then the rest to clean up."
"What? Why?"
"Eliminating everyone who's a threat... I did some digging on our friend and learned a few interesting things. Three years ago, Bartowski infiltrated a ring of assassins under the alias Étienne Toussaint."
He waited patiently, knowing that the alias had triggered a flash.
"Tsugh!" She groaned, grabbing her head. "He killed them all," she gasped in horror as she came out of the flash completely.
"My point exactly," he agreed with a faked sympathetic smile.
"Stop the presses!" A small, bearded man exclaimed when she entered the Bartowski residence. "Who is that?"
"Morgan," Chuck sighed with an eye roll. "That's Sam, and Bryce, and John. Please, just ignore uncle Morgan. He's had one too many Red Bull today."
She smiled politely and shook Morgan's hand. The man seemed friendly enough, albeit a bit weird.
Ellie came out of the kitchen to give her a hug, though she suspected that the older Bartowski was also checking up on her medical condition.
"Now that we're all here, let's eat," Devon concluded while he sat down at the dinner table.
"Much help you were," Ellie laughed, bumping shoulders with her brother. "If I hadn't sent you out of the kitchen, there would have been nothing left to eat."
She swallowed nervously; Chuck had been in the kitchen. She glanced at Casey, who sat looking at her with a look of interest on his face.
"I was only a bit peckish," Chuck offered in his defense, pulling out the chair for her.
There was a lot of banter back and forth as everyone took a seat, but she had a hard time keeping up with it and became the unintentional target of a quip or two in the meantime. Her mind wandered. What if Casey was right? What if Chuck was cleaning the operation? Would her pretend boyfriend really be so cold as to kill each and every one of them?
She found that incredibly hard to believe. It seemed out of character. However neither agent had really done anything to deserve her trust. Casey was all grunts and snarls with a penchant for violence. And Chuck, he had been pretty straightforward with her from the get go. Yet his actions this morning were questionable, combined with what she had learned about him, it fed the seed of doubt growing in her mind.
"Com'on, guys, dig in. I haven't spent all that time in the kitchen to have you stare at it," Ellie encouraged her family and friends, bringing her back to the here and now. "John, those mini quiches look yummy," Ellie complimented their neighbor. "You have to give me the recipe."
Casey nodded in acknowledgement.
"Stop!" She exclaimed, suddenly feeling she had no time to lose.
Almost everyone looked at her in surprise, except for the two government agents who were looking at her with interest.
"We, uh, we didn't do a toast yet," she said while her mind went into overdrive to come up with a way to stall and a plan that did not involve a massacre. "Which... I'll do right now. Uh, so I'd like to propose a toast," she stated, raising her glass and waiting for the others to join her. "To our hostess, Ellie... And to a meal that looks so great... And Devon, who is awesome."
"You said it," Devon chimed in.
"And Chuck, for, uh, looking after me today... And to John and his mini quiches, which are equally as great... And to Morgan, I don't know you but it would be impolite not to mention you."
"Don't mention it," Morgan smirked.
"What about me, Sam?" Bryce asked with a faux pout.
"And to Bryce, for being my best friend and roommate," she finished her toast, only to discover that she had indeed stalled dinner but still lacked a plan.
"Thank you, kind lady," Bryce smiled.
The silent interaction between Sam and Casey did not go unnoticed to him, and where he had given his colleague the benefit of the doubt, Casey had not shown him the same courtesy. Sam looked like she was about to jump up, toss the table upside down and bolt, so whatever the bearish agent had told her was doing its job.
He got to his feet, went over to her and whispered in her ear: "Got a sec?"
She nearly jumped out of her chair startled and almost knocked over her glass of wine, turning to look at him with eyes big with fear. He glanced at the NSA agent and shook his head tiredly.
"Can't it wait?" She asked in an unsteady voice before she nodded at the table. "Dinner."
"The food can wait," he answered in a stern tone, done with playing games.
He heard her take a deep, shaky breath. It earned his neighbor a dark look. Casey might have had the upper hand earlier, but now it was time to set the record straight.
"Now, Sam," he ordered before he made his way to the guest room.
She took her time following him and he began to grow impatient; if he had to, he would barge back out and drag her with him. He was about to move from words to actions when she entered the room. She looked shaken to the core and started to fidget immediately.
"What did he tell you?" He asked with a deep sigh, not wanting to waste any more time.
"That you killed doctor Zarnow and poisoned a group of men."
At least she had the decency to give a straight answer, though she avoided any eye contact.
"They're blaming me for Zarnow now? And you believe Casey over me?" He queried, disbelief etching deeper into his voice than he had wanted.
"Tell me about that group of men?" She asked slowly.
"They were members of the Dark Brotherhood, a group of assassins hired to kill Agent Carmichael after he foiled their plans, and I did not kill them. I infiltrated their little band and ground sleeping pills through their food... They've all been captured and sent to CIA black sites... I'm not Casey, Sam. I'm not some skin covered robot with a kill order. I don't kill for the kill, only when I'm left absolutely no other choice, as the last resort," he stated with vehement conviction. "If Casey really didn't kill Zarnow, then it is what I thought... I gotta go," he said as he grabbed his cell phone and his keys, and took off.
"Chuck, wait!"
He turned back to her, determination written all over his face: "You stay inside," he ordered while he pointed at her. "Do what I say."
All he could do was hope that Zarnow would put his plan in motion soon; he had been playing bait long enough for the bad doctor to be interested in the secrets in his head. He stormed out of the apartment, courtyard, and suddenly felt a sting in his neck. The world faded out.