A/N I actually know people with anti-foot and anti-chest-hair fetishes. Different people, that is. One each.

Morgan had to pee.

It woke him up early in the afternoon, and kept him awake in silent agony a long time, unable to get back to sleep but too comfy in bed to do what he had to do. He leaned over a little and sniffed at the place where Carina had been, but of course the feel of her had gone in every way, even the smell of her hair, and her perfume. Finally he could stand it no more and threw himself out of bed, throwing on some clothes for the walk down the hall to the bathroom, even a shirt for the lady who thought bare chests were bestial. Not in the mood to put up with her disgust today. His phone was showing a missed call, so he put it on speaker as he looked for his shoes, to appease the guy who thought bare feet looked bestial.

"Inform Leader the contact has been completed."

Sarah? Needing to talk to him? Why? He knew nothing about yogurt, frozen or otherwise. Then it hit him. It had to be Chuck. Something happened and she needed his expertise in all things Chuck-related. Oh, God. Now I really have to pee!

He gave up on the shoes, settled for walking down the hall in a tiptoe, so the guy wouldn't hear him and open the door suddenly. He had ears like a hawk! No one seemed to be around up here, just Mrs. Pendergast in the lobby, registering some new guests for the day. He paused at the top of the stairs, looking around the corner to make sure they couldn't see him, especially her, since he was a quasi-employee. The three guys she was talking to looked tougher than the usual run of her customers, maybe he should stock nails for their breakfast.

Good, no one was looking. He did a quick tiptoe-hobble-march to the other side of the stairs, just before his quasi-employer turned to point out the rooms her new guests would be occupying.

A straight run down the hall and he was home free, well, bathroom free.

With the return of his higher mental functions came a renewed concern for Chuck. Maybe he was sick or injured, and Sarah needed to know his favorite movies or ice cream to give him as he lay on his bed of pain. Has Sarah even seen Tron?

Wait a minute! Sarah knows Carina, that's how they'd met in the first place! They were in Hawaii together!

Should he mention this whole 'best friend' business? As Carina's friend wouldn't she want to know? He pulled out his phone, his finger almost, almost on the screen to start the call. No, that's not right. Chuck wouldn't do that. Maybe I should ask Carina first. God knows he wouldn't want anyone blaring out news of his own humiliation to all and sundry, he should show her the same consideration.

"He did what?" General Beckman wasn't as vocal as Ellie, on certain subjects, and this was one of them.

"He explained the Ring's motivations behind Rafe Gruber's presence, with a complete list of its implications. While standing in the lobby, pushing a broom."

Beckman sighed. "Could this get any worse?"

"He said it to Agent Shaw. And apparently forgot he said anything. Again. I had to give Shaw the second origin story."

"How many do you have?" asked Ellie.

"Three, so far. Chuck seems to like coming up with them, although he got kind of in my face about reading them without his permission."

Ellie smiled. "That's my brother, always putting more faith in human trust than computer security. He knows how easily that can be broken."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the name 'the Piranha', would it?"

"What do you mean by that, Sarah?" Beckman's voice was hard.

"Excuse me, General?"

"The Piranha was a great hacker, legendary to the other hackers we've caught. He would break into bank systems to move a penny. He broke into NORAD to play tic-tac-toe. He disappeared–"

"When, General?" said Sarah when Beckman trailed off. "When did he disappear?"

Beckman looked thoughtful. "About eight years ago."

"Coincidence?" said Ellie, who disliked generals looking thoughtful, as a rule.

"I think not!" responded Sarah, and they started laughing.

Beckman closed her eyes. Chuck, what have you done? "Anything else?"

Agent Bartowski composed herself. "Chuck passed out rather than beat Agent Shaw up again. Shaw was lucky there was no one around at the time, or it would have looked pretty bad for his reputation."

They were all lucky. "Well, that's something good at least, although Agent Shaw's reputation is the least of my concerns. Your doing, Doctor?"

"Yes, General. Until Manoosh and I finish coding his changes into the Intersect proper, I rolled back everything I'd tried to do myself."

Beckman nodded. "Get them done, but we might want to hold off on applying them until we can figure out this latest…wrinkle."

"I concur."

"Agent Bartowski, you mentioned implications?"

Sarah had to hold back a smile, although it didn't take much effort. Even under these bizarre circumstances, the General was still accepting Chuck's analysis at face value. It was too bad she couldn't tell him. "Yes, General. And it especially concerns Carina…"

"What I want to know is why I had to find this out third hand, Graboid. What happened, cat got your tongues?"

Chuck rolled his eyes, safe in his underground bunker. Nothing was less funny than Casey trying to be funny.

"If you can be so loud rolling your eyes, Eagle-Eye, how come I had to hear about Stampede from North Star?"

"Because I don't like to talk about people behind their backs, Dirtnap. It's called basic human decency."

"I call it basic human suicide, Graboid. The next time you know that one of my teammates is acting out of character, I'd appreciate knowing about it before I turn my back on them."

Chuck could see where Casey had a point. Well, half a point. "Of course it helps that Stampede's just sooo predictable."

Casey grunted an acknowledgement. "Regardless of your ladyfeelings on the matter, you had to know your little woman would spill the beans. I don't appreciate being late to the party, it makes me feel like the little fat kid. I don't like feeling like the little fat kid, get me?"

Carina waited until the third ring to answer the phone. "Hey, Martin. Miss me already?"

"Every minute and twice as much when I'm sleeping," said Morgan, feeling very suave, even if his image in the bathroom mirror didn't look very suave. He tried a different pose.

She laughed, and he felt like he looked. "Why?"

Think fast. "'Cause then I miss you in my dreams as well."

She clapped softly into the mike. "Nice save, Martin. I like a man with wit." What was the name of that pretty police officer? He had wit. "So why are you calling me? It's a little early in our relationship for the stalking."

"Says the woman who put her number in my phone," said Morgan with a slight laugh. She called it a relationship! "But I wanted to talk to you about Sarah."

"What about her?"

Her voice was flat and angry, but before Morgan could ask her why, a voice in his head said, "Perimeter set."

Huh? "That's weird."

"What's weird?" she asked, already unhappy with her slip-up, letting her emotions show like that.

"I'm hearing this voice in my head, like that creepy spy lady from Hawaii, only it's a guy this time."

Her voice suddenly got much more intense. "What's it saying?"

"It just said 'perimeter set'."

"Morgan–"

" It's like I'm listening to Call of Duty on radio."

"–get out–"

"Lockdown commencing."

"And now it just said, 'lockdown commencing'. Carina? Carina, you there?" He checked his phone, plenty of charge left but no signal. "Great, now she's gonna think I hung up on her."

Carina was not thinking that Morgan had hung up on her. She wasn't thinking about him at all, except in a Great, here we go again sort of way. She started a call in the stairwell and it got picked up when she was in the parking lot. "Casey, you've got company!"

Casey looked up and down the hall he was mopping. "I do?"

Wrong answer. "You and Mrs. Joined-at-the-hip are still at the hotel, right?"

"No, we packed up early, Chuck figured it out."

"Well thanks for telling me! Did Wonder Boy figure that the Ring would be at the B&B again today, with a full assault team?"

Casey abandoned the mop, started moving. "What's your source?"

"I was on the phone with Martin, he heard their chatter in his head."

"The troll's hearing voices in his head and you're taking him seriously?"

"He's a troll with a Ring subdermal implant in his head, and before you get all snotty, remember that your record of getting cuffed to the bed is much higher than his. I'm en route, I was hoping you were AOS but I guess no one is. I just hope he can hold out."

Was that actual concern in her voice? "Morgan? If I were you I'd start feeling sorry for the assault team. I'll get things in motion here and we'll meet up with you at the hotel."

Morgan turned off his phone's reverse camera-it didn't make him look any better than the mirror, but that could just be the cheap light bulbs-and opened the door to go back to his room.

Three guys with guns were standing outside his door, and as he watched one of them used a booted foot to kick in the cheap door. He winced and closed the door so he wouldn't have to see some jack-booted thug kick a hole in his security deposit.

"He's not here, sir," said the voice in his head.A brief pause. "Bed's still warm, probably just missed him. I see a pair of shoes."

Where were you when I was looking for those?, thought Morgan.

"Dispatch a man to check the common areas while you expand your search."

"Check."

Morgan heard nothing about the dispatching of men, presumably it wasn't a chore that needed to be done over the radio. Plus he had bigger fish to fry. "Common rooms? Common rooms? That's the kitchen, and the dining room, and the bathroom." He looked around wildly. "Crap, I'm in the bathroom. Come on, Grimes, think. What would Chuck do? No, no, you gotta aim higher. What would John McCLain do?"

"What's the emergency, Dirtnap?" asked Chuck, responding to the alert on behalf of the team.

"Your little buddy the troll," said Casey. "Stampede just called it in, there's a Ring strike force busting down doors right now, looking for him."

Fingers flying through a text message, Chuck asked, "So she called you? Doesn't that seem a little out of character?"

"Not if she fired your wife this morning, numb-nuts."

"Just watching your weight there, big guy."

"Watch this, Eagle-Eye. Satellite three, if you focus it down real tight."

"Kind'a busy right now, Dirtnap, I'll have to take your word for it. What I meant to say, of course, was how come she didn't just signal us herself?"

"I don't know, Graboid. It might be due to a sense of unrelieved hostility towards certain members of the team, manifesting itself as a set of juvenile behaviors and insults. On the other hand, it could be because we forgot to get her CIA-issued watch back when we were at the hotel this morning."

The bathroom door slammed inward, followed by a muzzle, but there was no one to shoot, no place to hide. The goon looked up. "I've got a dislodged ceiling tile in the bathroom."

"He may have gone into the attic. Research indicates that there might be a secret passage built into the walls, Carmichael may have gone to access it. Check up there and report."

"Yes, Leader." The goon left, scanning the ceiling for a ladder to the next floor.

Inside the bathroom, scrunched uncomfortably in the vanity under the sink, a man who was just small enough to fit in there, considered what he'd just heard. A secret passage! How cool is that? He would have smacked himself upside the head, if he could have moved. It's an old house in Washington, of course it's gonna have a secret passage. He shifted, but not enough to do him any good. Carmichael, eh? Man, I feel sorry for that guy.