I do apologize for being a week late with this. I have been working as a substitute teacher for the last couple of weeks and haven't had a day off in ten days. Not to mention, I was driving myself nuts trying to make this chapter work...and I'm sure that will be obvious when you read it. I did want to give a quick shout-out to KrisWatchesOn, who used to post these great Chuck videos on YouTube, so I threw in a little Easter egg for her in there. And if you can find it...that's scary. I can imagine, however, you'll get a lot of the other references.

As always, NBC and Fake Empire productions are the creators of the good stuff, while I create the not-so-good stuff. I'll try to get the next chapter out sooner, but I'm still teaching over the next few weeks and I may be going out of town later in October. I'll do my best.

And please leave reviews. I always appreciate seeing those. Thanks!

Costons Lane – Greenfield, UK
May 24, 2016
11:30 PM BST

Sarah sat at the kitchen table with considerable annoyance, although she had calmed down from earlier. Most of her irritation right now came from watching Chuck and Morgan playing Halo on the X-Box Alex bought for Morgan while they were in London. She wanted some alone time with Chuck, even though she was as exhausted as everyone else. But it was hard to fight that boyish charm of Chuck, and she knew he had missed his best friend over the last several months.

She sighed as she took another sip of wine from a bottle they had opened earlier. She would have given anything for a better solution. She wanted nothing more than to get the Intersect out of Chuck and be with him away from the world of espionage. But she was having a hard time with what that would entail. She only knew about what happened to Jimmy the first time he had the Intersect from what he told her and what he had told Chuck. Jimmy always downplayed how bad his past was, afraid he would sound like he was whining, which meant what he went through having an Intersect must have been even worse than she could picture.

"He spends three days in extreme danger, and his first thought is to play some stupid videogame."

Sarah turned to see Ellie behind her shaking her head and smiling. "One of the worst days of my life was when Chuck saved enough money to buy a Nintendo," Ellie said with a chuckle. "Morgan hasn't left his side since. And don't even get me started on Morgan's teenage crush on me…that is probably still going."

Sarah laughed. "This is definitely taking 'boys will be boys' way too far for my liking."

Ellie sat down at the table next to Sarah. "I'm so glad you two returned safely, but I feel so horrible Cole lost his friend."

Sarah nodded sadly. "Amir was a good guy. I mean, I only knew him for a couple of days, but friends are hard to make in this business. It didn't take me long to see why Cole and he got along so well. The guy saved our lives."

"But I'm glad you and Chuck are back. I think I knew from that first night I met you that you liked him. I could just see it in your face."

"I feel pretty foolish now, denying myself what I wanted for so long. I'm so glad you gave me that little kick in the ass when you visited the studio. You were right. I didn't need the show, and I didn't need to be a spy. I just needed Chuck."

She then stared ahead and her face drew into a look of worry. "What is it?" Ellie asked.

"I'm just remembering something from when Chuck, Jimmy, and I talked. Jimmy said the reason he wanted to do this was that he really needed the team back together. He admitted our breakup hit him hard. Then he was about to say something and stopped. He tried to play it off like it wasn't important. But…"

That got Ellie's attention. "He did the same thing with us a couple of times. He would start to say what he was doing during the last few weeks and then go silent. Something's not right."

"And Carina hadn't heard from him since your wedding until he called to say that all of you were attacked in L.A. Something must have happened in that time before he rescued Alex. Something he's keeping from us."

"Maybe he told Alex. She's seen him the most since the wedding. Why don't you ask her?"

Sarah scoffed slightly at that. "We're…not exactly on the greatest terms right now."

Ellie put her hand on Sarah's arm. "I sympathize, Sarah. I know she almost cost you your job and what she almost did to Chuck…I can't blame you for hating her. But I think she's telling the truth when she says she's not the same person now. She had no good reason to admit to me she almost shot Chuck to prevent his capture but she did. And then to lose her fiancé in the Pentagon on 9/11…"

Sarah's eyes widened. "She was going to get married?"

"She was in training to join the FBI, met a guy, and they fell in love." Ellie felt a shiver go through her. "I don't even want to imagine the hell she went through that day."

Sarah fell silent. She figured there had to be something that turned Alex Forrest into one of the most cold-hearted agents in the CIA. Practically every agent has a story to them. But she never expected that to be Alex's story. And had this been ten years ago, she wouldn't have cared. She was probably as ruthless as Alex was back then. But meeting Bryce, being promoted to the TV show, and working with Casey, Carina, and Jimmy had changed her outlook on life. And what Chuck had done for her over the last eight months was beyond measure.

Ellie was right. To have your entire life ripped away from you in a single moment would be tough for anyone to recover from. Alex deserved to be cut some slack. Besides, anybody who could finally convince Jimmy to get his head out of his ass and make him realize he could find someone special couldn't be all bad.

"You're right. Thanks, Ellie," Sarah said with a warm smile, putting her hand over Ellie's.

Soho – London, UK
May 25, 2016
12:00 AM BST

"Are you sure about this?"

Cole looked around his empty apartment. Empty perfectly described how he felt right then. Carina and he spent a couple of days aboard the HMS Eddington taking care of Amir's last instructions and requests. Back home, Grace Hawkinson did not take the news well at all, but that was to be expected. Cole was so grateful she still arranged the clean-up of Amir's personal effects from the apartment and located the lockbox Amir wanted Trevor to have. That list of things Cole owed Hawk was quite long now, but he had every intention of fulfilling it.

"I have to sometime," he sighed. "The rent won't pay itself. I have to get back to living here when I'm not working."

Carina squeezed his hand. "It's amazing how different you are from that first night I met you in New York."

Cole nodded. "I could say the same about you. I must be honest: I don't think I've ever felt like this at losing a fellow agent. I've felt bad for it happening, certainly. You never want to see one of your co-workers killed, even if it was in the line of duty and to save everyone. If this job is meant to kill us, there's no better way to go. But this…"

"You two were good friends. There's no shame in admitting that."

Cole turned to her with a tiny smile. "I blame you for this, actually." Carina gave him a look, which he countered with an even bigger smile. "You're the one who got me thinking about more than just missions. Hanging out with you and your friends has made me rethink a lot of the things I've done in the last fifteen years. My attitude towards others, the things I did for queen and country."

Carina gave him a kiss on his cheek. "I used to be that way myself. I don't make friends easily. And the ones I did, I had no trouble putting myself ahead of them. But now…"

Carina shivered and Cole drew her closer to him. "I don't know," she said softly. "I only knew Amir for only a couple of weeks and it felt like we had been friends for years. I…I knew I had changed the longer I worked with Sarah and the others, but this…I guess I didn't realize until now how much I have changed."

"Maybe it's like that Pink Floyd song said: we're just two lost souls swimming in the fishbowl year after year," Cole replied.

Carina turned to Cole and took his face in her hands. "But the good news is, I think we're a little less lost now."

She pulled him to her and gave him a passionate kiss.

Hotel 41, Westminster – London, UK
May 25, 2016
12:15 AM BST

Alex took a towel and dried her face in the bathroom of Jimmy's and her hotel suite. After the team agreed on the best way to approach Beckman, Cole and Carina left. It would be the first time sleeping in his apartment since Amir's death, but he insisted he had to do it at some point. And Carina insisted she accompany him. With only three bedrooms in the safehouse, Chuck, Sarah, Casey, and Ilsa stayed there so they could keep an eye on Ellie and Devon, leaving Morgan to nap on the couch…once he finished his X-Box marathon with Chuck. Alex went into the hotel they found and signed the registry using the fake passport Jimmy provided while he snuck in a side entrance and took the service elevator up to their room. They hoped the public's memory was short and forgot about her brief appearance in front of the cameras two months ago at Ted Roark's mansion.

"Are you sure about all of this?" Alex called to Jimmy. "From what Sarah and the others have said, you went through hell when you had the Intersect in you. Sure, it was years ago, but this is a big thing you're doing."

She started to walk out of the bathroom. "I know you want to help them leave the spy business, and I promised both Ellie and Sarah I'd help make that happen, but I'm worried that…"

Jimmy was out cold on the bed.

Alex shook her head and smiled. It was the first night back in London for the team after rescuing Ilsa from Azerbaijan, and she had hoped she could get some romantic time with Jimmy, but she should have guessed he would be bushed. The entire team had a rough week…even her. Although that was mostly from Morgan's incessant questions about being an agent, which was quickly cured by a trip to a local electronics store to buy him an X-Box. Everyone else helped take down one of the deadliest terror cells operating in that part of the world and a major weapons supplier for ISIS. And there was little question they still felt the hurt of losing Amir. But she felt even more sympathy for Jimmy, who probably had two of the roughest weeks of his life trying to defend Ellie, Devon, Morgan, and her, to say nothing about coming so close to committing suicide before that.

She went to the bed and took Jimmy's shoes off of him. She then gently extricated the covers from under him, leaving him turned on his side. She got in the bed, covering both of them with the blankets. She snuggled next to him, gently taking his arm and wrapping it around her. She settled in, never feeling more at ease in her life. She sighed contentedly, pulling Jimmy over her like a comfortable blanket. There was a bit of a chill in the room, and cuddling against his large frame felt wonderful.

She then heard a happy moan from him as he instinctively took her in his embrace. She smiled and gently reached back to caress his cheek. It wasn't quite as good as sex, but she'd take it.

She could talk to the teddy bear in the morning. She'd enjoy this for tonight.

Citation Latitude over the Atlantic Ocean
May 25, 2016
2:30 PM ADST

"And I thought the flight here was epic!"

Even Chuck was starting to grow a bit weary of Morgan's wide-eyed amazement at every little thing ever since he discovered his best friend was a secret agent and the stars of his favorite show were, too. But Chuck couldn't be too mad on this one. Even he thought flying on a private jet from London to Washington, D.C. was awesome. But it made sense to charter a private flight back home. It allowed everyone to keep a low profile, to say nothing about departing from the much-quieter Gatwick Airport instead of Heathrow, where Cole had a few friends that could keep the flight's passenger list off the computers.

Ilsa and Cole joined everybody else on the flight. He had asked for two weeks off following what happened with Amir. Given how much the team accomplished in taking down a major arms dealer and a terror cell, Cole's bosses were in a giving mood. And since the DGSE was still denying Ilsa's very existence even now, she figured they couldn't do anything worse to her than what she had been through in the last few days.

"I'm actually glad to be going home," Chuck said quietly as he sat next to Morgan, nursing a glass of water. "I loved being with Sarah, but then it was almost impossible to stay out of sight. And then what happened in Azerbaijan…"

Morgan exhaled. "OK, there was a lot of bad with the good. All the danger, Cole losing his buddy, having to lie to your sister and me. But now you get to go back and tell the government what it can go do with itself. Who wouldn't love to be able to do that? And then, you get to be with Sarah. I mean Sarah WALKER! You know how many guys at Comic Con would give anything just to get her to wave at them? And she is totally in love with you, man!"

A tiny smile came to Chuck. "That's still so hard to believe. How did I get that lucky?"

"It wasn't luck. It was all you, dude. You were the same awesome, cool guy you've always been and she saw that. Obviously, she's beyond gorgeous, and to find out she can really do the things Jen Burton can do is just so mind-blowing. You're lucky to have met her, yeah. But I think she did pretty well for herself, too."

The smile on Chuck's face grew wider. "Thanks, buddy," he said, giving Morgan a hug.

"Anytime, man," Morgan replied. "We're in this together, right?"

Sarah walked up and gave Chuck a kiss. "I have to go talk to Jimmy for a moment, but I want some alone time with Chuck when I get back," Sarah said, giving a raised eyebrow to Morgan.

"Yeah, sure sure," Morgan replied, clearly embarrassed he had been hogging Chuck for the past twenty-four hours.

Both Chuck and Morgan watched her walk to the back of the plane. "She's…she's scary," Morgan stammered.

"You have no idea," Chuck agreed.

Sarah made it to the last row where Jimmy was sitting. Alex was sitting two rows ahead of him talking to Casey and Ilsa, and Jimmy just looked out the window in silence.

"Are you OK?" Sarah asked as she sat down next to him.

"Sure," Jimmy replied quietly, glancing over at her.

"I'm still…I'm worried about this. What Chuck's going through right now…and what you went through when you had the Intersect."

Jimmy shook his head. "That was twenty-five years ago. I think it's safe to say things are different now."

"But Chuck is…"

"Look, if I'm wrong about this, fine. But one way or another, he's getting the Intersect out and you two are done being spies. I don't give a damn what it takes, you two have earned the right to live happily ever after."

"And what about you?"

"I stay a spy. Big deal."

"No, stop it. Quit acting like what happens to you doesn't matter. I want Chuck out but I won't risk your life to do it."

"Are we going to start that argument again?"

"This isn't even about getting the Intersect out of Chuck anymore! You're hell-bent on keeping the team together. You said last night you need the team, and you told Carina when she went rogue that without the team, you had nothing."

Sarah was silent for a moment. "What happened to you after the wedding? Carina said you disappeared and only contacted her because Ellie, Devon, and Morgan were attacked. And Ellie said you went silent any time you were about to say what happened to you. All I know is you freed Alex from capture and went to her father's funeral. What happened before that? What were you doing for those two weeks?"

"It doesn't matter…"

"Yes it does! Obviously something terrible happened. That's your pattern. I don't even think you realize you're doing it. You never say anything or you try to play it off whenever something bad happens to you.

"I want the truth, Jimmy. We are not doing this until I know what happened to you. And don't try to tell me it's in the past or it's stupid or it doesn't matter. I want to know right now."

Jimmy exhaled in frustration. "I…had a hard time handling Beckman's decision to disband the team. The media and the fans swarmed me, especially after they aired that cliffhanger. I just wanted to disappear. I sat on this beach back home, trying to forget everything. But it just got worse and worse. Then I started drinking, just like my dad did. And…"

Sarah saw Jimmy freeze up and her eyes widened. "What?" she whispered in fear.

"I…the...Alex's distress call was the only thing that stopped me from taking my own life." Jimmy muttered as he hung his head.

Sarah sat back in her seat and had difficulty breathing. "Oh, God. Why didn't you…I never thought that would happen. I was so caught up in keeping Chuck away from the CIA. I should have…"

"Stop right there," Jimmy replied forcefully. "I didn't get to say it doesn't matter, so you don't get to do the "I should have…" bullshit. This is not your fault. I was a goddamn idiot for even contemplating it. I did a stupid thing in a moment of weakness, OK? It's that simple."

"No, it wasn't a moment of weakness," Sarah fired back. "We all felt it. I just wished you would have talked to one of us. But it makes sense now. Why you need the team so badly, why you volunteered to be the Intersect. When you thought you had turned into your father, you were afraid you had lost everything. You're afraid of going back to your past. Well, I can guarantee you that will never happen. You can't go back; you're not the same person you used to be. None of us are. We changed because we changed each other. We cared for each other and made each other better. We became a family. There is nothing anyone can do that will tear it apart."

She took his hand. "Besides, I was right," she said with a grin. "I told you someone would find you. I never expected it to be Alex, but it sounds like she really has changed. And I'm glad. You deserve someone good."

Jimmy nodded gently. "Yeah, you did say sooner or later, someone would push right past all of my BS. Alex sort of gave me the same speech…with a few more not-exactly-gentle suggestions thrown in."

"I can imagine. Subtlety is not her strong suit. But after all you did for her, I think she's going to do whatever it takes to hang on to you. It's a smart move on her part. I certainly know how good of a catch you are."

Jimmy looked abashedly at the floor. "Thanks."

Sarah gave him a light smack upside the head. "But no more dumb moves like that. You're not getting rid of us that easily."

"Understood, boss."

Sarah then hugged him tightly. "Just glad you got everyone back together. We missed all of you."

"You too, kiddo," Jimmy replied.

Sarah got up and walked back to the front of the plane where Chuck and Morgan were. She tapped Morgan on his shoulder.

"Sorry to do this to you, Morgan, but we timeshare our favorite playmate and it's my turn now," she said with a grin.

Morgan exhaled in defeat as he got up. "Yeah, I'm never winning this battle. I can only offer him videogames and awesome discussions about the latest Marvel movie, and you can offer him, well, that," he said dejectedly, gesturing at Sarah's body.

"So true, so true," she said smugly as she let Morgan go by, tousling his hair as he walked down the aisle towards the back. She sat down next to Chuck. "Hey there," she said.

"Is everything OK with Jimmy?" Chuck asked.

"It's fine," she replied. "I just needed to hear what happened to him while we were gone, but everything's OK now." She stared ahead for a moment and began to laugh. "I still can't believe he finally caved and slept with Alex. With the person who almost broke up our team, no less. I never would have predicted that in a million years. But then, who would have guessed Case finding Ilsa again and Carina risking her career and life to rescue someone like Cole."

Sarah turned to Chuck and grinned. "Maybe you should start your own matchmaking service. You certainly did a good job with the people I work with."

He laughed. "After what happened with me and Jill, that is seriously ironic."

"Hey, that one's on her. She obviously didn't know a good thing when she saw it." Sarah pulled Chuck's face to her and gave him a passionate kiss. "I was just talking to Jimmy about how all of us are different because when we became part of this team. But since you joined us, we became even better. Better agents, better people You made that happen. I know you've done so much for me."

Chuck gazed into her sapphire eyes and gave her a warm smile. He slid his hand along her cheek and ran his fingers through her hair, gently pulling him to her. Sarah held him as the two shared an ardent kiss.

"Ewwww…"

Both of them broke apart and turned to see Casey there with a look of disgust.

"Now we really need to get the Intersect out of you…just so I don't have to be tortured like this anymore," he grumbled in repugnance.

"Uh, Case? You do know you're within earshot of your girlfriend, right?" Chuck retorted with a smirk as he pointed behind Casey to where Ilsa was standing…quite amused.

"It's not the same thing."

"And why not?" Ilsa said with a raised eyebrow.

"This should be fun," Sarah said, sitting back sporting the biggest grin on her face at Casey getting flustered.

"We still need a plan to talk to Beckman," Casey said quickly to get the spotlight off of him. "Forrest got us a place to land without anybody knowing it's us, but we're not going to get very far."

"You'd think she'd be happy she'll be getting her Intersect back, even if it isn't me," Chuck said.

"Case is right," Sarah replied in disappointment. "She's mad as hell right now, and we'll be lucky if she hasn't ordered every agent to shoot us on sight."

"And even if you could stay away from them, you can't stay away from the public," Ilsa added. "So many people would recognize your faces, you have no place to hide. What if Cole, Alex, or I went in? We wouldn't be recognized."

"Beckman knows where I've been by now," Casey replied. "She knows I went to find you, and Barker and Forrest have already shafted her. She'd arrest you three just as fast as she'd arrest us. She's got the government and a ton of resources on her side."

"So take that away from her."

Everybody turned to see Morgan behind them. "It's like that second season episode," Morgan continued as everybody else moved up to listen. "Remember when Jen Burton and Jack Coulton kidnapped their own boss because a mole in the agency made him believe you two went rogue? You showed him the evidence of who the mole was and saved the day."

"This isn't the show, Morgan," Sarah replied sharply.

"No, wait," Chuck said. "I think he's onto something. I mean, Beckman's got the entire government after us, even after everything we did for her? I think a little payback is in order!"

Everybody stared at Chuck in surprise. "We shouldn't have to take this," he continued as he got more and more worked up. "If we want to pull this off, I think we have to go all out. I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!"

Morgan grabbed Chuck. "We're just the guys to do it!"

"Oh, shut up," Casey growled, rolling his eyes.

"Easy, Niedermeyer," Jimmy retorted. "Chuck's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We have to meet Beckman on our terms, not hers. If she wants the Intersect, she damn well better give us what we want, starting with Chuck and Sarah's retirement."

"Chuck, won't you need your father to get the Intersect out?" Alex asked. "I mean, we still don't know if the problems you're having are due to the Intersect being incompatible. And you'd need him to make a new one for Jimmy."

Chuck nodded. "You're right. We have to find him before Beckman finds us. I think we can assume we won't find him living in that same trailer near Barstow."

"Wait, wait…Dad?" Ellie stared in surprise. "He invented the Intersect?"

"A long time ago," Chuck replied. "He had been working on it since the 1980s. He got the original one out of me and gave the CIA a new one under the condition they would let me leave the Agency. But that night in the Intersect room changed all of that. We'll need him if we want to get this done."

"But he took off right after our wedding," Devon said. "How do we contact him?"

"Actually, I know how," Ellie replied.

Everybody looked at Ellie in surprise.

"Dad left you his number?" Chuck asked in amazement. "I did not expect him to do that."

"He didn't leave me a number; he left me a letter." Ellie reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope. "He told me only to open this if I ever got in trouble and needed his help. After what happened to us at the Buy More, I figured there was something important in here he wanted to tell me. But it was just a set of instructions on how to contact him. Can I borrow a laptop?"

"Sure," Jimmy replied. He retrieved his laptop and gave it to Ellie. She immediately brought up a web browser.

"How do you contact him?" Sarah asked.

"I log onto IMDb and go to the bulletin board for a particular movie," Ellie replied.

"Let me guess…Tron," Chuck said with a knowing glance.

"Exactly."

Chuck looked over her shoulder as she typed. "'DrEllieBean' is your handle?" he said with a laugh.

"Yes, it's my online name. Deal with it," she spat at him.

"Have him meet us at your apartment tomorrow night," Casey said. "You and Chuck and Sarah talk with him. The rest of us will watch the perimeter to make sure nobody crashes the party."

"OK." Ellie typed the correct phrases into a bulletin board message.

Echo Park – Los Angeles, CA
May 26, 2016
9:00 PM PDT

Stephen Bartowski drove up to the apartment complex. He wasn't sure why Ellie needed to talk to him barely a month after the wedding, so he was suspicious. Of course, being paranoid had kept him alive for many years, so he thought nothing of rigging his truck to blow up should anybody attempt to open it or take anything from it. He also had a 22 hidden on a spring-loaded holster inside of his sleeve nobody would see coming.

He walked up to Ellie's and Devon's door and knocked. To his surprise, Chuck answered.

"Dad, hi," Chuck said, giving him a hug.

"Son, I didn't expect to see you here," Stephen replied as he entered the apartment. He then saw Ellie and Sarah. He went right to Ellie and hugged her tightly.

"Ellie, so good to see you," he said warmly. "How was the honeymoon?"

"Wonderful, Dad," she replied. "But we have a problem, which is why I contacted you."

"What is wrong?" Stephen asked as he also gave Sarah a hug.

"This…will take a bit of explaining," Chuck said, gesturing for everyone to sit down. "You gave Bryce a new version of the Intersect."

Stephen nodded, although the thought did not delight him. "They made changes to the data architecture. I thought I had an ironclad deal with Beckman that she would leave you alone if I made it for the government. And then that agent who came for Bryce…"

Chuck exhaled. "Bryce was shot and killed before he could upload it. This group called the Ring captured us and was ready to kill us. Then…" Chuck fell silent.

"What?" Stephen insisted.

"Chuck uploaded the Intersect and saved our lives," Sarah answered. "He's had the new Intersect in him ever since."

"What?!" Stephen was upset to say the least. "Chuck, it wasn't designed for you. The Intersect I built was meant only for Bryce. If anybody else tried to use it, it would start to break down the synaptic pathways in their mind. They'd slowly go insane from all of the pain and eventually die! The Intersect has to be designed to fit a specific person, and they have to be capable of handling it!"

"But someone could handle it if it was designed for them?" Chuck asked.

Stephen nodded. "It would take time to create, but yes. Wait a minute. Please tell me you didn't remain with the CIA. After everything we did to get you out?"

Chuck shook his head. "After Ellie's wedding, Sarah and I took off, but General Beckman sent people out to find us. We tried to stay hidden, but let's face it, it's hard for us to hide being so famous. There's only one way to prevent us from being on the run forever."

"We're going to offer Beckman what she wants," Sarah continued. "She gets her Intersect, and the team is reunited with Chuck and I out of the spy business for good."

"But who is going to be…" Stephen started but quickly figured it out. "No, absolutely not," he said vehemently. "I almost cost Jimmy his life twenty-five years ago. You are not putting him through this again!"

"Actually, this was his idea," Chuck replied softly. "Can you do it, Dad?"

"Dad, please," Ellie pleaded. "We're in a lot of danger right now. Devon, Morgan, and I were attacked twice a week ago, and General Beckman's tried to arrest the entire team. This is the only way to fix all of this. We need your help."

Stephen sat back on the couch. The last thing he wanted to do was build yet another Intersect, and he sure as hell didn't want to put Jimmy through any more than he already did. But if Chuck uploaded the one meant for Bryce, then he would start suffering mental damage from it. He had to get it out of Chuck, and he would need government resources to pull it off successfully.

"When this is over, the list of things Beckman will owe me will be quite significant, too," Stephen said.

"Thanks, Dad," Chuck said as both Ellie and he hugged their father.

"We should get everyone over here and go over the plans."

"Uh, we're way ahead of you," Sarah said.

"What do you mean?"

From the kitchen, bedrooms, and other parts of the apartment, everybody else appeared.

Stephen looked in complete surprise at how much bigger the team was. "Is…there going to be a Jen Burton movie next season?"

"Oh, we wish," Jimmy replied with a grin.

"So, how do you convince Beckman to do this?"

"We have a plan that contains my three favorite things," Casey replied. "Misdirection, firepower, and general nastiness."

"I like it already."

Office of the Director of National Intelligence – McLean, VA
May 27, 2016
6:30 PM EDT

General Beckman took the elevator down to the parking structure in the sub-basement where her two escorts were waiting for her. The three began to walk towards Beckman's government vehicle. One of them held the back door open for her, and she entered. The escort closed the door, and the two got ready to take their positions.

A masked individual came out of the shadows and fired tranq darts at both escorts, sending them to the ground. Beckman looked on in surprise and reached for the door handle. However, the masked person quickly pulled out a remote that locked both of her doors and raised the privacy screen, trapping her inside. The person then got into the driver's seat and began to drive towards the exit.

"Al, open the pod bay doors," Jimmy said as he maneuvered the car towards the exit.

"Hysterical," Alex grumbled as she snuck quietly towards the guard at the gate. She zapped him with a taser and opened the gate. Jimmy stopped the car to let her into the passenger's seat, and the two took off with Beckman trapped in the back.

They headed north on Interstate 495 towards Maryland. In the rear-view mirror, they spotted the two tail cars that always followed Beckman whenever she left the DNI. Almost certainly by now they realized Beckman was not taking her planned route, and they began to close the distance.

"Bring out the party poopers," Jimmy said over his radio.

Two cars sped at over 80 MPH towards the tail cars. Casey used his Crown Vic to swerve in front of one car while Carina used her Ferrari to cut off the other one. Ilsa and Cole leaned out of their respective vehicles and shot one of the tires on each car, slowing both tail cars down and force both of them to the shoulders. They then floored it to catch back up to Beckman's car.

Ten minutes later, Beckman's car pulled into an abandoned warehouse just outside of Rockville with Casey and Carina not far behind. Jimmy opened the door and then opened the back door of the vehicle, motioning with a gun for Beckman to exit. Jimmy and Alex led her to a seat in the middle of the warehouse where Chuck, Sarah, Ellie, Devon, Morgan, and Stephen were waiting for her.

"Are you people out of your minds?" Beckman yelled.

"According to my last psych profile…yes," Jimmy quipped.

"Admit it, General," Sarah began with considerable anger. "If we had told you the truth about what happened in the Intersect room that night, you'd never let Chuck leave."

"That's…" Beckman began, but the looks on everyone's faces made her conclude they wouldn't believe anything she said. "The Intersect is the most powerful tool we have ever had in our intelligence arsenal. And what Mr. Bartowski was able to do with it is beyond measure."

"You also changed my original design," Stephen retorted, who was as angry as Sarah. "And now this new Intersect could have cost my son his life!"

"You assured us it would work."

"Yeah, had Bryce Larkin uploaded it and had you not changed the data architecture!"

"We need the Intersect. It gives our government a significant edge. You think the danger ended with Fulcrum? Obviously it didn't."

"We know that," Ellie spat. "Our family was attacked twice, and the second time was by someone in your own damn department. Sarah and her team are the only reason you still have an Intersect!"

"Fortunately for you, we have a plan," Sarah said.

"What are you talking about?" Beckman asked.

"We'll give you a new Intersect," Stephen replied. "I'll work on an Intersect based on the way you reprogrammed the data structure and make it work properly."

"But who will receive it?"

"I will," Jimmy replied. Beckman turned to him. "I upload the new Intersect that Mr. Bartowski designs and we're back in business. But know this: the price is significant. There are going to be quite a few things we want. Chief among them is that you put the team back together and you let Chuck and Sarah walk away from the government scot-free. They never hear from you again. Is that clear?"

Beckman looked ready to scoff before Jimmy cut her off. "And before you say any sort of bullshit about refusing to be intimidated or bullied, just remember you did this to yourself. You threw out your best team when you didn't even know you had Ring agents in your very own department. I am quite certain everyone here will just be happy to walk away and live comfortably somewhere else in the world and let you deal with this. And you know damn well you can't handle the Ring without us."

"And to make sure you keep to your word," Stephen continued. "I've made an email detailing every last piece of this. How Sarah and everybody else are really spies, how the enemy has infiltrated our own government, how close they've come to taking over, and how you have refused to do anything to stop it. And that email will go out at 6AM each morning unless I'm there to cancel it."

Beckman quietly growled. She didn't like being pushed around like this but she had little choice. If they were telling the truth about the Intersect not being compatible with Chuck, it would only become a matter of time before he became useless. Plus, the Intersect was designed to be put into a trained agent, and Slade certainly qualified as one.

"Very well," Beckman said quietly.

"I'll need a copy of the Intersect data you had," Stephen said.

"We didn't keep any copies."

"Yeah, right," Jimmy growled. "Dry that one out and you can fertilize the lawn."

Beckman quietly growled. "I'll get to work on retrieving it. In the meantime, contact our IT people, Mr. Bartowski, and discuss what you need with them. As for the rest of you, there's a lot of work ahead if we're going to stop the Ring."

"Good," Sarah replied. "I can only relax for so long."

"Awww," Chuck whined.

"You did too good of a job relaxing me, sweetie," she purred, giving him a kiss.

"Ugh," Casey and Beckman grumbled at the same time.

Unknown Location
May 29, 2016
11:00 PM

A man stood in front of a table laid out in a semi-circle. The five individuals sitting at the table were quite displeased.

"You have made no progress in capturing Chuck Bartowski," the one in the center said to the man who was standing.

"I told you it was a bad idea to go after his family," the man replied. "Just because the team was broken up doesn't mean they stopped being spies. I sent six after them, but Agent Slade still took all of them out."

"Are Mr. Bartowski and Agent Walker still in Europe?" a person at the far left asked.

"I'm trying to find out now, but I have reason to believe they have returned to the United States. There have been rumors throughout the office they may have visited Beckman. If not them, then someone on their team. But I do know the team has expanded. At least three other agents, two from overseas, have been linked to the original group."

"And what about the Intersect data?"

"Supposedly it was destroyed, but I have a hard time believing there were no extra copies made. There were a high number of IT requests and reallocation of hours right before that night in the Intersect room."

"Find that data," someone just to the right of center ordered. "And don't come back without it."

The man exited the room. It felt a bit far-fetched there would be Intersect data saved that he hadn't found after a month. But Clyde Decker held the highest position in the DNI of any Ring agent, and he planned to put that to good use.

"We should come up with a contingency plan," a person to the left of center said. "Constantly underestimating Agent Walker and her team has cost us considerably."

The person in the center nodded. "Let's track down that former agent and show him the video. It is time for Daniel Shaw to know the truth about his wife's death."