A/N: Real life has made it difficult for us to update as often. Thanks for still reading in spite of that. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: We don't own CHUCK or its characters. We aren't making any money writing this. We are writing it for free. You are reading it for free.
Chuck was on the phone, bored out of his mind. Morgan sidled up to him. "Psst, Chuck, we have an emergency. We need to talk."
"I'm on the phone, Morgan," Chuck replied.
"Shh," he whispered almost violently. He looked left, than right, and then finally back to Chuck "Not here, not here. There are spies at the Buy More." Sarah walked by as Morgan said it, and she rolled her eyes, grinning at Chuck. Morgan never noticed her, but Chuck did. She was dressed in a blue top, and it really made her eyes pop… Was that a thing?
Chuck grinned, trying to come back to reality, and turned around to his buddy. "Spies? Really? Or, or, maybe, just maybe you've had too much grape soda."
Morgan looked affronted. "Tang's minions, man. They're everywhere. He's like Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Only, he's taken control of the assistant managership." Morgan's eyes got wide when he said the last part.
Chuck hung up the phone. "Yeah, from me. Right, thanks for the reminder."
Morgan's eyes got wide as they tracked something over Chuck's shoulder, and then he shoved a paper into Chuck's hands and ran off.
"Seen Morgan, Chuck?" Harry asked.
"I think he saw someone needing assistance and hurried off after the customer," Chuck lied.
"He's got potential, you know, I just had to get him away from you." Tang sipped his coffee, staring at Chuck.
"Away from me…. You know what, Harry? Go...do whatever you do."
"Casey," Harry said, snapping his fingers as the big man approached. Chuck's eyes widened. He was trying not to laugh at Casey obviously holding back from murdering the smaller man. "I saw someone by the Beastmasters." Casey grinned and took off. Harry gave Chuck a look and went off to do whatever it was that Harry Tang did.
Chuck picked up the paper Morgan had thrust at him and looked at it. "Rules and regulations for the Buy More break room. From the desk of Harry Tang?"
"Whatcha doing, Chuck?" came Sarah's voice beside him. He jumped, throwing the paper in the air. She snatched it out of midair and looked at it. "From the desk of Harry Tang?"
"He doesn't even have a desk," Chuck said spinning around in his chair. "Do we have a 'ahem' date that I don't know about, because that is not Wienerlicious attire." She gave him a look, but the grin fought through. "I mean you are beautiful in anything, but that blouse really compliments your eyes...you know...if you were looking for a piece of clothing that might get a guy to compliment you on your eyes. You're seriously gonna let me hang myself with this, aren't you?"
"Not only that, but I'll provide you the rope," Sarah replied, grinning. "Anything wrong?"
"You mean other than me shoving my whole leg in my mouth?" Chuck replied.
She bounced a shoulder. "You didn't. Thank you for what you said."
Chuck grinned at her and again had to fight down the feelings inside of him. It wouldn't do either of them any good. "Please let me come work at the Wienerlicious."
"I already told you that you don't have the legs for the outfit," Sarah replied, reading the 'New and Improved Buy More Rules'.
"Scooter doesn't have to wear that outfit," Chuck retorted.
"We only have one pants outfit," she replied, not really paying attention to him. "This is an affront to human decency."
"The rules, or only having one pants outfit?"
"Focus Chuck," Sarah said, waving the list. "What is happening here is much more important than the way your legs look in an outfit." Chuck was having trouble keeping a straight face. "No swearing," she read, and shook her head. "Okay, that's not a problem, and no one is going to follow it, but no expectorating? No fornicating? You have to make these rules?" She looked at him. "Wait, have people been getting freaky in the break room?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Have you been cheating on me in the break room?"
Chuck panicked. "No! No, no…." he calmed down when he saw her smirk, and began to giggle, bouncing her finger at him. "Damn it, you got me again."
"Uh uh, no swearing."
Chuck, grinning, took the list from her hands while she was laughing.
She sobered up, and Chuck's mouth spoke before his brain caught up. "There's a room in the back for that," Chuck said softly, and then winced. He shouldn't say things like that to her. Yeah they were friends, but was it too much? He quickly put those thoughts aside as she burst out laughing at him. "Oh, wait…" he said, understanding Morgan's problems now as he closely inspected the list. "Oh, this is not good."
"You want to have that option, just in case?" Chuck looked over at her, and she was nearly red from trying to hold in the laugh.
"No, this is bad," Chuck said, pointing to the fine print of the drug policy. "The no-drug policy includes Red Bull. The last time Morgan tried to detox…." he trailed off. "It was inspiring how the little bearded man tried to move electronics with the sweaty shakes."
"I'm not sure which would be a scarier sight, Morgan detoxing, or Morgan over-caffeinated," Sarah replied. Chuck shuddered.
"I'm sorry you two, but is this the Talk More?" Harry said coming up behind them. Both of them looked over at him. "It's the Buy More. So why don't you get back to helping paying customers?"
Sarah glared at him. "Well, I was thinking about having Chuck install all the new electronics that corporate was gonna buy at the Wienerlicious, but I guess I could always enlist the help of someone at Large Mart..."
"Miss Walker, I apologize," Harry said, trying to kiss her ass. "You have to understand, so many employees here are out for themselves, but not the Buy More. My humblest apologies." Harry scampered off.
"You know, of all the amazing bad ass things I've seen you do, THAT might have been the most bad ass thing I have ever seen," Chuck said in awe.
Sarah waved her hand. "You're easily impressed," Sarah replied. Chuck's mouth dropped and she giggled. "But seriously, is Harry wearing a new assistant-manager polo shirt?"
"It's monogrammed," Chuck replied.
"He must be stopped," Sarah muttered. Chuck nodded.
Casey ran by. "Tell the general just a minute, I've nearly got another guy buying a Beastmaster."
Chuck and Sarah shared a look. "I think he's taking the cover a bit too seriously," Chuck said.
Sarah shrugged. "Never let it be said that John Casey does anything half-assed."
}o{
Sarah took Chuck by the hand and led him back to the home theater room.
"Look, I have no problem with people thinking I'm constantly getting lucky with you back here, it really helps my street cred," Chuck whispered.
"I'll say," Sarah replied, grinning.
He stopped and turned, looking at her. He looked around to make sure they were alone. When he looked at her, something in Sarah flipped. Something that wasn't supposed to be flipping. "Sarah, I know it's just a cover, but…"
She gave him a smile. "Chuck, I understand, and it's fine." She gave him a grin and a little shrug. "You are a perfect gentleman, and I don't care what they think we're doing. It helps keep you safe, and I suspect there are several out there who are jealous of me." She squeezed his hand and started towards the theater room, but he wasn't moving.
"Wait...wha?"
She came back to him, fighting the smile.
"Chuck," she said softly. "You are warm, kind, and considerate. You put others first all the time, and ANY girl knows they would be lucky to have a guy like you in their life. Now, you and I know what's really happening, but I have no problem others thinking I'm infatuated with you and want to be alone with you. All I'm doing is helping solidify that illusion. And, I enjoy our talks on the way to the briefings, I always learn the strangest things."
"Such as?" Chuck asked.
"Star Trek II was originally going to be named, The Vengeance of Khan, but LucasArts, who handled special effects for the movie, rejected the name because it sounded to much like the name of their upcoming movie The Revenge of the Jedi...spoiler alert, LucasArts changed the movie to Return of the Jedi." Chuck bit into his fist, and collapsed to the ground. She grinned, spun, and headed to the theater room.
Chuck walked in a few seconds later, while she was trying not to grin. "Wow," he said, looking at the TV. "That new High-Def screen sure shows every wrinkle."
Sarah's eyes got wide as he sat down beside her. "They can hear you," she whispered, not moving her lips.
"What?" He looked at the screen and Beckman was staring at him. "Twinkle," he said quickly and smiled sweetly. "Every twinkle in her eye. Eyes." Sarah cut her eyes over at him, and couldn't stop herself from thinking, I'm not protecting you from her wrath even though you're cute.
"Where is Agent Casey?" Beckman asked.
"Selling a Beastmaster," Chuck replied. Beckman blinked. "It's Harry Tang, he's out of control."
"Does he need to be dealt with?" Beckman asked.
"WHAT? No! No, God, no I mean he's annoying but...isn't that a bit extreme?" Chuck was going pale.
Sarah placed a hand on his arm to calm him. "Transferred Chuck...transferred. There are thousands of other Buy Mores."
"Mr. Bartowski, we don't have people assassinated willy nilly," Beckman replied. Sarah caught the look on Graham's face. Maybe the NSA didn't….
"You know there might be an easier way. I could get a new job," Chuck said, pulling Sarah out of her thoughts. She turned slowly to look at him.
"Agent Walker," Beckman said. Sarah turned toward Beckman. "I don't think Mr. Bartowski has the legs for your work uniform."
"I told him the same thing, General," Sarah replied with a straight face.
Chuck's mouth dropped open and looked from Sarah to Beckman. "Wrinkles my ass," the older woman muttered.
Casey burst into the room. "Sorry General, another sale."
"Well done, Major," Beckman replied. She addressed the room. "We have a situation. A CIA asset has gone missing." Sarah didn't miss the look Beckman gave Graham. What that look meant, she had no idea. "We've had no communication from him for two days." A photograph appeared on screen.
"No way," Chuck muttered.
Sarah turned to him and eyed him steadily. She hadn't seen the flash. "What, did you flash?"
"No, I don't have to," Chuck replied. "That guy was my professor at Stanford." Wait….what the hell? No, what the actual hell? Chuck had a professor that recruited students into the CIA at Stanford? This was getting preposterous. Casey gave Sarah a look. "Wait," Chuck said. "Asset...he's CIA? My professor was a spy?"
"The CIA recruits on campuses across the country," Sarah explained. Bryce was at Stanford, knew Chuck at Stanford, Chuck had a CIA professor at Stanford, and he was kicked out of Stanford. Her spy senses were going off. Something didn't make a damn bit of sense. "Professor Fleming is a company scientist, not an operative."
"A what?" Chuck asked.
"Typically they analyze data and send in their findings. If it's actionable, an operative reacts to whatever the scientist found," Sarah replied.
"What the hell is he doing at Stanford?" Chuck asked, even more confused.
"Recruiting," Sarah replied. "His job was to observe students and find those he believed would help the CIA. He also was good at observing hostiles that might infiltrate college campuses."
"This is our last communication from him," Graham said, cutting in. Sarah wondered, what did Graham know?
"This is Glass Castle reporting hostile contact," the transmission said. "I made a mistake, Black Coat. I copied intel for myself onto a disc. They're after it. I know I shouldn't have." The transmission ended.
"Do we know what intel he copied?" Sarah asked.
"We don't." Beckman replied.
"He's handled many sensitive projects for us. Any leak could prove devastating," Graham added.
"How can we help?" Casey asked.
"Fleming has contacts in L.A. If we find him, you can extract him," Graham answered.
"We'd like your help on this, Chuck," Beckman added.
Sarah was already trying to think about where to start. Having Chuck would be key, and could help the search. A CIA scientist was out in the wind. Granted, it didn't exactly fall into the parameters of this being her last mission, but leaving someone behind, someone out in the cold, wasn't something Sarah Walker did. That's why she was stunned to see the look on his face.
The lack of self-esteem she had talked about earlier, it was back, and with friends. He looked...smaller. He looked...less sure. He looked…. He looked worse than that first day she saw him at the Nerd Herd desk. She didn't know what happened at Stanford, exactly, but there was more than he told her.
"Look, I don't think I'm your go-to guy on this one." The way Chuck said it, softly, like something inside of him had broken again….
"Your knowledge of Fleming and Stanford is key here," Graham said in a tone Sarah recognized. She turned toward the monitor and steeled her features not to give anything away. He was going to use Chuck for his benefit, damn the consequences. "We only have his official reports. You have a personal connection." Damn you, Graham.
"Yeah, I do have a personal connection. Very bad personal connection. You guys have the file. You know all about Fleming and what happened to me. The guy kicked me out of school."
Sarah hated herself, but she knew what she had to do. "Professor Fleming is one of us." She said it in a tone to let him know, she hoped, that she hated this but that it had to be done.
"Maybe you can find somebody else to help you this time," he said, looking straight ahead and not at her, like he thought he was disappointing her. "Maybe just this once." He got up and walked out, having never looked at her. Sarah glanced at Casey who had a smirk on his face...like he was proud of Chuck for standing his ground. Knowing Casey, he probably was.
"Agent Walker," Graham began.
"Director, you could have warned us," Sarah said, cutting him off.
"I thought you controlled your assets better than that," Graham rebutted.
"That's no typical asset," Casey replied. "That asset has saved our asses and done all he can for us, Director. He is also a civilian who's had life kicking him in the pants for too long. Agent Walker has been helping him fight back, control his life, which has made him better able to help us and more confident in the way he utilizes the Intersect...and then you dump this in his lap? What do you expect him to do? Agent Walker is one hundred percent right. A heads up could have saved us all a lot of grief on this one."
Beckman fought a smile and Graham looked pissed.
"Perhaps...perhaps you're right," Graham finally conceded.
"I'll talk to him," Sarah said. "I make no promises though, especially with the way you delivered the mission."
"I hear you, Agent," Graham said. Sarah swore Beckman's eyes were twinkling as she cut the feed.
Sarah turned to Casey. "Fight back? Control his life?"
"Oh, utter bullshit," Casey replied, chuckling. "But that was bullshit the way they dumped that in his lap. Looks like you're on asset duty again, I'll begin research."
"Casey, any idea what happened at Stanford?"
"No, but a bottle of Johnny Walker says we'll both know by the time this one is over."
}o{
Chuck heard the hubbub in the courtyard before he and Sarah even walked through the gate. He heard Awesome's voice above the rest, bellowing a loud, "Bro, go long!" and he had a bad feeling. He was already tired and he had a feeling he'd be even more tired after he walked through whatever the hell this gathering was.
"What's going on in there?" Sarah asked, tensing at his elbow.
"I don't know, but I don't have a good feeling about it." When she sent him a look, as if wordlessly asking if she should be worried, he shook his head and smirked. "Sounds like Awesome's throwin' a get-together or something."
"Oh." She loosened up as they walked in.
A group of Awesome clones were staggered through the courtyard, having beers, throwing a football… He wondered if their landlord even cared that they'd made this whole place pretty much theirs at this point.
He spotted Ellie over by the fountain and approached her as she caught sight of him and smiled, giving Sarah an excited little wave with the hand that wasn't holding a beer. "Who invited the UCLA brain trust?" he asked, gesturing to her boyfriend and his friends.
Ellie didn't even react to his teasing. "Those are Devon's fraternity brothers." She moved onto her tiptoes to glance over his shoulder and took a swig from her beer. "We are caravan-ing up to Stanford for the UCLA game this weekend, actually. It's gonna be, um...fun." She sent Sarah a shared-joke eye roll.
Chuck made a face, raising his eyebrows. That sounded super un-fun. The un-funnest. But at least he'd have the place to himself for a few days. Well, sort of. The government would be there in bug-form.
"Hey, Chuck!" He turned to see Captain Awesome in the corner, beaming at him with a football in his hands. "Go deep, bro!"
"Nah, that's cool. Thanks, though."
"Go! C'mon! I know you can catch, let's go!"
Chuck jogged a little away and turned back as the football sailed over his head. He didn't know why he didn't just let it go. It was like he saw the thing and a trigger went off. He leapt forward for it and found the toe of his shoe had caught on the edge of the planter, sending him sprawling onto his face. He watched from his place on the ground as the football landed and mockingly bounced in the other direction, before making a little circle and stopping right in front of his face.
"Ooooooo!" Awesome was kneeling next to him. "Hey, listen. I appreciate the sheer effort, bro. You went for it. Respect."
"That means nothing to me right now," Chuck murmured, hoping he hadn't wrecked his uniform pants. These dumb slacks were expensive. He let Awesome help him back to his feet, both he and Ellie who'd hurried up to him brushing him off. His pants were okay. No harm, no foul, he supposed. But he refused to look at Sarah after that epic fail. Maybe it was middle school of him, but why the hell'd that have to happen in front of her?
"Well, maybe this'll mean somethin'." The doctor fished a ticket out of his back pocket. "I gotcha a ticket for the game." He beamed proudly.
Chuck felt Ellie's presence at his elbow acutely. And he also remembered the talks they'd had about Awesome making a genuine effort to be closer. Not that they weren't close! It was more like she'd enlisted her boyfriend to get Chuck involved in more than just work and video games. It felt condescending, but...she meant well. "Oh, yeah...wow...well, thanks. Thanks, but um…" He wracked his brain for something that would put them off. A-ha! ...His girlfriend. She was standing right there, smiling a little. She raised her eyebrow at the long look he sent her. "Sarah. Sarah and I. We have plans this weekend. Yeah. Gotta spend time with this girrrrl, ya know? Can't let her get away."
Sarah giggled at him and he thought that was nice of her, playing along as he sort of threw her under the bus a bit.
"Bro, come on! It's your alma mater!" Awesome said, waving the ticket in his face. "It'll be rad, dude. My team versus your team. A little friendly banter goin' on…"
Yeah, no. No, it wasn't his alma mater. He lost a bit of his warmth at that. Even if it wasn't really Awesome's fault. He was trying to do a nice thing for his girlfriend's brother, for his friend. And he appreciated it, but…
"Look, no offense… But I'd rather face-plant directly into the fountain next time than go back to that place."
Awesome just shrugged, not looking like he was going to argue with him. Chuck appreciated that as he got a supportive slap on the bicep from the captain. Awesome knew the situation well enough by now, so he wouldn't push. Maybe he thought it wasn't his place.
He wandered off with a, "Let's go, dudes!", his gaggle of erstwhile frat boys trailing after him, and Chuck realized that while Awesome probably thought it wasn't his place, his sister wouldn't be holding back.
She stepped in with that look on her face, and he really was so tired.
Ellie started with a wince. At least she knew what she had to say wouldn't be well-received. But he wasn't sure if it made it even worse that she knew, or not. Like, she could just...not say it. She could just leave him alone.
"Listen, Chuck. I know you have a lot of bad feelings about your alma mater." She sent Sarah a bit of a tentative look, like maybe she shouldn't be starting this conversation with his still new girlfriend standing right there.
"It isn't my alma mater, El. Maybe if I had a diploma, it would be, but I dunno if you remember, I got kicked out before that could happen." He hadn't meant to be so sarcastic with her, but she knew he was extremely sensitive about the Stanford stuff. It had ruined his entire life. His entire life. All of his plans, everything he'd worked for since he was young enough to care about computers, gone in one damn moment, in one damn professor's office. Fucking Bryce Larkin.
"Uh, that isn't really how that works, Chuck. It's still your school."
"Look, Ellie...Ellie…" He swallowed thickly, feeling an embarrassed flush that Sarah was still standing right next to him. "They kicked me out for something I didn't do. Okay? So that's it. Me and Stanford? We're officially done. No football games. No visits. I don't even want to hear the fucking name 'Stanford'. I'm through with it all." Then he paused at the bummed look on his sister's face. "Sorry."
He finally turned and looked at Sarah. Her face was unreadable, and he actually found for once that he preferred that to anything else—pity, sympathy, curiosity. She flashed a small, closed-mouth smile at Ellie though as he wandered past both of them to go inside, and he felt her following after him. The handler keeping tabs on the asset.
Though that wasn't really all that fair. He was just in a mood now. They had parental lock on cable; he wished there was a way to block stuff in real life. He'd cut Stanford out of his life altogether, make it so that anytime someone was going to mention it to him, he heard a soft breeze instead.
Chuck knew Sarah was there when he walked into his room, going into the corner of his closet and pulling his last box of Stanford stuff out, looking down into it, the sweatshirts, notebooks, pictures...one picture in particular… She'd seen enough of him being a sadsack now, about various things, and she'd seen him have mental breakdowns… She'd seen him at his worst, and most vulnerable. So what did he care if she saw him feeling sorry for himself as he ambled over to his bed with the box and plopped it down carelessly?
She was leaning against his doorway silently, just watching. And as he plopped face-first onto his bed, his body limp, he heard Sarah wander over and sit on the other side of the box. "What is all this stuff?"
"The last box I didn't unpack. It's sat in there for five years, don't judge me."
"I'm not. I imagine it was kind of painful having to unpack this stuff."
"Worst thing ever."
"Can I look?" He shrugged, turning his face away from her, hearing her move stuff around in the box. "Rubix cube, huh? Can you do these things?"
"Yeah. S'easy."
"Impressive." He made a noncommittal sound in response. And then he felt her hand on his upper back. "Hey. You can talk to me. If you need to." She paused, then, when he didn't respond, and he heard she maybe felt like she was overstepping, or like maybe she wasn't supposed to be there for that talk Ellie had just given him. More than that, the way he'd snapped back at his sister. "It seemed like maybe you really just want to not think about it. And that's okay, too. But you got this stuff out, so I thought...Oh."
Chuck pushed himself up to look. She'd found the picture of Chuck, Bryce, and a few of their friends at Stanford. Taken before he was kicked out, before Bryce framed him. She was gazing down at it, her eyebrows raised. And he wondered what she was thinking. "Yeah, that was before he ruined my whole life."
She swallowed and nodded. And even though he really didn't want to talk about it, part of him felt like maybe he had to. He moved to sit up on the edge of his bed and gently reached over to take the picture from her, looking down at it.
"That was the most mortifying thing you could possibly imagine. I was living in a house with all my frat buddies, you know? And I had to pack everything up in my room, head out to the car. Ellie and Awesome dropped everything to come up and get me, sort of a support system type thing. I wouldn't let them come in to help me pack, though, it was way too embarrassing." He let out a huff and shook his head, widening his eyes. "I mean, I can't even describe the looks on all of their faces. They waited at the bottom of the stairs, all of them looking at me. I mean, they'd all sided with Bryce, ya know? They all thought I'd cheated. I'm sure they felt bad for me still, but some of the guys weren't even looking at me." He reached up and scratched the back of his head, feeling awkward being this open with her suddenly.
But she just listened quietly, watching him steadily, moving the baseball she'd taken out of the box in her hands slowly, methodically. Strange how that small thing was almost comforting to him.
Or maybe it was just her in general. Her presence.
"You wanna know what he said to me?" She didn't respond. "Bryce, I mean." He looked up at her as she nodded silently. "I asked him why he did that to me. You know, putting those tests in my room. Framing me. I asked him why. And he said I did it to myself." He whistled low, shaking his head. "Man, he was my best friend there. We were practically attached at the hip, the two of us. And to have him say that after what he did, both of us knowing he'd framed me on purpose, it felt like he'd grabbed a knife and jammed it into my chest. I'll never forget the look on his face. Like he was ashamed of me. Fucking asshole." He dropped the picture back into the box dismissively.
As Sarah put the baseball back into the box, he stood up and hefted it into his arms.
"Why would he do that?" Sarah asked. "It seems too...awful. To do that to anybody. But your friend especially."
"Because he was sleeping with my girlfriend. Simple as that."
Sarah just frowned, then gestured to the box. "What are you doing with that?"
"Putting it directly in the trash. Fuck these memories. Fuck Bryce. I'd say I'm done letting him dictate my life, but thanks to him, I've also got the Intersect in my brain, so he's still dictating my life." He walked past her towards his door. "What I can do, though, is get rid of this shit."
Sarah followed him again. "Do you think this is something you might regret, though, Chuck? Tossing that part of your life away like that?"
He sent her an annoyed look and she winced.
"Sorry. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I suppose I'm just giving you some food for thought. It-It isn't as easy as throwing stuff in the garbage. They say 'out of sight, out of mind', but I don't think it's...that easy." She got a look on her face then as they stopped at the front door. He wanted to know what she was thinking about, but he knew better than to ask, or even surmise.
"Sarah, I can't even remember any of the good things from Stanford. If I tried, I couldn't remember. Those last days, Bryce fucking me over, stealing my girlfriend, my future...getting told I had to pack my things and leave the school, my home… That's overtaken all of the good stuff. None of this means anything to me anymore," he said, lifting the box a little.
She sent him a reassuring smile, nodded, and opened the door for him.
He led her out to the trashcan and she opened the lid for him so that he could drop the box straight into it. He wished there was a way he could cut himself off from that part of his life altogether, but Bryce had made sure he couldn't by sending him that email.
As Sarah let the lid shut, she made a soft sound of surprise. "Oh, hey. Your ID fell out."
Frowning in question, he glanced down at his feet. It must've fallen out of the box when he tossed it in. "Oh. Yeah. Don't need that anymore."
He leaned down to pick it up, straightening to his full height and turning it over in his fingers to glance at it one last time. He felt a tingle at the back of his head and it moved to between his eyes. Oh...oh, no.
Chuck flashed, seeing his transcript from the years he'd attended, his record… He didn't understand it. He didn't get any information from it. But he'd just flashed...on himself.
"Chuck, did you just flash?" Sarah asked, and he felt her put her hand on his shoulder, spinning him towards her.
"Y-Yeah. Yep. I flashed on myself. Sarah, why—why'd I—?"
Her features hardened, not towards him, as she grabbed the ID from him and looked at it. "I don't know, Chuck. But that means you're in the Intersect." She bit her lip. "So far Casey's been read into a lot more than I have with this whole operation," she said with no small amount of sardonicism, "so maybe he will know. Come on."
She grabbed his hand and pulled him across the courtyard to Casey's apartment.
}o{
"What d'ya mean you flashed? On this?" Casey held Chuck's Stanford ID up, then lowered it down to where he could look at it. "Do they require you to make a stupid face for these things?"
"Casey," Sarah interrupted, snatching the card from him. "Chuck flashed on himself. That seems like a big deal. And considering I don't know why, that leaves the NSA."
"Well, Agent Walker, not to beat a dead horse, but you haven't exactly been in the loop as far as what's going on over there in the lovely Central Intelligence Agency, have ya?"
She'd literally just hinted the same thing to Chuck, but still she glared, clenching her jaw at him. "Thank you, Casey."
"S'true," he said with a shrug, and she shifted her weight uncomfortably.
"How am I in the Intersect? We still haven't got an answer to that sort of giant massive astronomical question. Maybe we should, ooooh I dunno, figure that out?" Chuck asked, looking like he was maybe losing his cool a little bit.
"We'll figure it out." She crossed over to the computers and sent Casey a look. He got the hint and joined her. She made short work of searching the CIA database as Chuck scurried over to stand behind her, but Casey grabbed him by his shoulders and walked him back down to where he couldn't see the screens.
"Just in case," he snarked with a bit of a smirk, patting Chuck on the chest.
"Oh, come on. What am I gonna do? Tell everyone we're keeping aliens in a super secret base in the New Mexico desert?"
Casey widened his eyes. "You aren't s'posed ta know that...Did you see that in the Intersect?"
Sarah rolled her eyes and kept searching, going back before the date Bryce stole the Intersect. Chuck was nowhere in there. The name Bartowski wasn't, either. "Maybe we should talk to Graham and Beckman."
Casey shrugged. "You really think we should? Look, I don't need to do a search. I know for a fact the NSA has no record of you from before Bryce put you on our radar. I don't know about the CIA, Walker. And it seems like you don't, either."
She frowned deeply. "I just looked. He isn't in here until Bryce sent that email to him."
"He is standing right here." Chuck pointed to himself.
"Sorry," she said with a wince. "Bad habit."
"None of this is reassuring, guys," Chuck said, starting to pace. "The Intersect is supposed to have information put into it by the CIA and by the NSA, a sort of cross-reference guide to put their gathered info together and paint a picture so that you can...I dunno, stop bad guys. If the NSA didn't put me in there, and the CIA didn't put me in there, who did?"
Sarah didn't have an answer and neither did Casey, it seemed. She turned to exchange a look with him.
"What's that? Stop doing that. Stop doing that secret agent look exchange. Just tell me. There's a reason why I was put in the CIA database in my Stanford days. That's what this means, right? I flashed on my Stanford ID. That wouldn't have been put into the Intersect after Bryce tagged me with the Intersect. So I was put into it before. Why?" Chuck asked.
"Same thought I had," she admitted. "What did you see in the flash? Anything important?"
"No. No, just my records, the stuff they kept on me while I was there. And my transcript, the grades I was getting in my classes. Usual stuff colleges keep on their students." He shrugged, stopping the pacing and turning to face them. "That's why I'm sure I was added then. None of it was...now stuff. No Buy More or anything."
Sarah turned the ID over in her hands, chewing on her cheek.
"Wait-Wait a minute. What about Professor Fleming? I was in his class, and he was CIA. Maybe there's some connection there. What if they added all of his students or something?"
Sarah sighed and glanced at Casey again, before turning back to Chuck. "Fleming might give us some answers if we could find a way to locate him."
And what Graham and Beckman didn't know wouldn't hurt them, she thought to herself. Casey's words were stuck in her mind. She didn't entirely trust anymore that the CIA database she'd gone into had everything. Chuck had the real database in his head. There were things in the Intersect nobody had access to. It worried her.
"That means you have to get over your little Stanford tantrum earlier and put on your big boy pants. Think you can do that?"
"I dunno, think you can take off your asshole pants for a few minutes and act like a person?" Chuck snarked. Then he narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together. "Pretend I didn't just ask you to take pants off."
Sarah bit her cheek, forcing herself to remember there was something serious going on here to keep from showing too much amusement. "You're going to help us find Fleming, then," she said…or maybe she was asking, more like.
"If I want answers, I guess I'm going to have to."
"Good. Come over here." He walked over and she grabbed his arm, pulling him in next to her. "It won't be easy," she said.
Casey piped up, seeming properly chastised almost. It was...surprising. He was getting right to business. "New intel suggests the professor's being hunted." Sarah glanced at him in question. "It just came in. You were outside watching the meathead fest. The NSA's interviewed one witness in Fleming's class, said a guy barged into the classroom. Fleming took one look at him, ended the class early, grabbed his briefcase, and ran out of there. She ID'd the guy—Magnus Einersson. He's an Icelandic spy."
Chuck frowned. "I'm sorry, Iceland does espionage?"
"Magnus spies and sells intel to the highest bidder. Iceland isn't 'officially' aware of his activities." Casey added a scoff to that but Sarah was already leaning in and reading the file the NSA had on Einersson. Jesus Christ, this guy was insane.
"It says here that the crossbow is his weapon of choice," she said out loud.
"Oh. What. Slingshot's too ineffective?"
She sent Chuck a smirk. "What it means is this guy doesn't just follow orders. He enjoys the hunt. You send a spy out on a kidnap or kill order, they don't typically go into it using a weapon like this. He's a hunter. Fleming's being chased by a madman."
"What the hell?" Chuck stood up straight and turned to face her and Casey. "This is getting way too 'Most Dangerous Game' for me. Some guy who hunts people is chasing my old Stanford professor through the greater Los Angeles area and I have to go save him."
Sarah felt like there was something else he was going to say, but then he didn't, giving his head a little shake. Was there something else about Professor Fleming? Something he hadn't told them? She stored that away in her brain for later.
"Not just you." Casey grabbed a gun and slid a clip into it cockily. "You got us, too. Crossbow bastard hasn't got a chance."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Casey. We have no idea where Fleming is, or if he's even alive still."
"Well, are we even looking?" Chuck asked. "We aren't gonna find him if we aren't looking."
"We've got people on it," Sarah reassured him. "We can't do everything, just the three of us."
"Yeah, but it feels an awful lot like we're doing nothing. I need to know why College Chuck is in the Intersect," he said, tapping his head. "And if Fleming gets killed by this Crossbow Viking Zaroff wannabe, my chance of getting some answers dies with him." He winced. "Also, that means another human being will be dead. That's also bad. Ahem."
"What do you want us to do? Drive in circles through Los Angeles looking for him? Knocking on doors with his picture asking little old ladies if they've seen 'im? When Walker says we got people on it, it means we got people on it. Capiche?"
Chuck let his chin fall to his chest. "So...what, then?"
"We let our people do their jobs, and they'll tell us when they've found him." She squeezed his arm. "Until then, you go to work tomorrow. Casey and I will keep tabs on the search."
"I'm getting really tired of sitting at that stupid Nerd Herd desk and pretending like everything isn't the literal worst," he complained. And then he sighed and shrugged. "But okay. Fine. Yeah. I'll go to work tomorrow and...wait."
Sarah smiled reassuringly, silently hoping they weren't too late when it came to Professor Fleming. Because she was just as eager to find the answer to this puzzle as Chuck was. Maybe not...he had a lot at stake here. But she was pretty damn eager.
Because if the CIA knew about Chuck five years ago, there was a good reason for it. And whatever that reason was, it scared her. Because it meant there was a lot going on here that none of them knew about. And she had a bad feeling the director of the CIA did know. That it was another thing he was keeping from all of them. Perhaps even from Beckman.
What in the hell were the CIA up to?
A/N: Thanks for reading. Please leave us reviews. We tend to like 'em.
-SC and DC