A/N: Ownership of Chuck. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Time for a ROAD TRIP. I love road trips.

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Not too long after leaving the American Embassy in Budapest, Chuck, Sarah and Casey were in the maroon minivan given to them by the CIA Budapest station and driving on the M1 westward towards Vienna. Casey and Sarah had decided that, since Vienna was about three hours away from Budapest, if they left promptly, they could be there for dinner. Sarah was driving with Chuck next to her and Casey in the back seat. She had called ahead and booked them two connecting rooms at a hotel she knew in that Austrian city.

Chuck was quiet and looking at the scenery pass by his window. Truth be told, there wasn't much in the way of scenery. The ground was flat as a table and mostly covered with snow. There were some of the usual sights along the highway, cheap hotels, restaurants, gas stations, warehouses, but nothing very much to hold his interest.

In any event, his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about the offer Graham had made to him, to become a real spy.

Finally, Sarah said, "So, what did Graham want? Don't keep us in suspense."

"He invited me to go to the Farm. To become a spy."

There was a grunt of surprise from Casey.

Sarah said, "What?" Sarah's head spun to look at him with shock. "Why would he...? No. No. He should have asked me first. He shouldn't spring that on me...on us like that. It's not right...he ..we should have talked about it..." She sounded quite upset.

"What did you tell him, kid?" asked Casey, cutting through Sarah's obvious discomfort.

"I told him I would think about it."

"And?" asked Casey.

"And I don't know what to do with the offer. I never thought of myself as ...as like that...a spy. James Bond. Jason Bourne. Maybe I was Q, in my own head, you know? A gadget guy. But out there in a tux and karate chopping bad guys...I mean I still don't think of myself that way and here we are doing what we're doing anyway. I'm in awe of you both, what you can do. You know that. Fit into any situation. Sarah, the way you talked Selenica into doing exactly what we wanted him to do. And Casey, I think you're made of iron. You are the toughest guy I've ever met. The toughest guy I've ever conceived of. I mean, there's no amount of training that can get me to even come close to you two. So, who am I kidding thinking about the Farm? But, on the other hand, I really like what I'm doing, at least parts of it. What we're doing together. You know that, I've told you that before. What if the Farm can make me better at it? So I can help more people? Or help them better, you know? I'll tell you what I really need though. What I really want to do is talk to you both about it. It's not a decision I'm going to make myself."

"Naw, kid. Maybe you talk to Sarah about it, but it's your decision. Yours and hers. It's not for me to say."

"No, Case. You're wrong. You and Sarah...well, I'm not making decisions without both of you. I'm not. In the last few months...well, I think you both know how I feel about you both. I don't want to go all lady-feelings on you, Case, but this is a team decision."

"I hear you, Chuck. I really do. But I still think..."

"No, Casey. It's a team decision," Chuck looked at him seriously and sounded pretty firm. It reminded Casey of the way Chuck had stood up to Yuri when the man had wanted to kill Selenica straight-away. This was Chuck at his most determined.

Casey was silent and they drove for another few kilometers before Sarah said, "I don't want you to do it. I don't want you to be a spy. You're Chuck. You're my Chuck. The parts of what I do...what Casey does, that you are uncomfortable with...that discomfort...that's what makes you you. You're a good guy. Bryce was right, though I hate to say that. You are too good for the spy life and I don't want you to change to fit it. One of the reasons I fell in love with you was that you were just good. A really good guy. The Farm would ...well, to succeed at what we do...I just don't want you to do it."

"Ok, Sarah," said Chuck quietly. He reached out and squeezed her hand and gave her a little smile.

Twisting around in his seat, he looked at Casey. Casey had been looking out the window, but he looked at Chuck when Chuck turned. They contemplated each other silently for a moment or two. Then Casey said, "Hypothetically, let's swap you out of the team and replace you with Larkin. Just hypothetically. Naw, you know what, Sarah has a history with that asshole, so that's a bad example. Let's take ...Longshore, the guy from New Jersey. Swap you out for Longshore. Me, Walker and Longshore. He's a spy and a good one. Had all the training you could want. How long does the team last?"

Chuck shrugged. Casey went on in his deep growl. "It doesn't, kid. It doesn't last. No way in the world I'm on a team with him. Nothing wrong with the guy, I'm sure he's terrific, just doesn't work. Nothing to keep me in the mix. Walker too. Just doesn't happen. Swap ME out for Longshore, on the other hand, and it's no big deal. Team goes on just fine." Chuck took a breath to object, but Casey raised a hand to forestall the interruption. "This team we have is only a team because of you, Chuck. Only you. You are what holds us together and gets us the successes we have had. And we've had some pretty damn impressive successes. The way you look at things, at situations, is unique. It gives us an edge. And it doesn't have the slightest thing to do with that fucking Intersect in your head. Nothing. The idea of sending you to the Farm to bang that uniqueness out of you is just plain stupid. You are the hub of the wheel. We don't need another spy. We just need you. What we have here..." He waved a finger to encompass all three of them. "...it ain't broke, Chuck. It ain't broke and I see no need whatsoever to fix it. None."

Chuck was shocked. Even Sarah was shocked. But she said, "He's right, Chuck. He's right. Making you a spy isn't necessary and may even be counterproductive. Casey and I are teaching you every day and every day you are getting better and better. We can teach you what you need to know to thrive here."

Casey said, "Maybe we can get you into some individual classes...specific topics..."

"He said that. Graham said that. He said he could get me into the Farm or any other program I want. I could take..."

"Some of the NSA tech guys run a bunch of classes on some of the computer stuff," said Casey.

"How to defuse a bomb," said Chuck. Sarah looked at him from the corner of her eye. "Well, think about it. I stopped the countdown on Andric's cell phone, but we had to wait for the bomb squad to defuse the actual bomb. What if I knew how to do it myself? When we thought Bryce's container was a bomb, I was looking inside to see if I could do anything, but if it was a bomb what would I have done? Defusing a bomb would save lives. It would be good. I'd like to learn how to do that."

"I'm sure that Graham could get you into that class or some others you might like. Hell, kid, there's an entire university, the National Intelligence University, with nothing but classes," said Casey. "You can take whatever you want. No need to send you to the Farm to just become an asshole like me and Larkin. You can pick and choose what you study."

They spent most the rest of the drive to Vienna talking about some of the classes Chuck could take if he wanted to.

After checking in to the first-class hotel in the center of the city, they ventured out to a wonderful dinner at a restaurant Sarah knew. They had delicious schnitzel and a couple of bottles of Grüner Veltliner, the renowned local white wine.

After dinner, they began to walk the cold quiet streets of the city to give Chuck a feel for it. They wouldn't have much time for tourism in the morning, and nighttime was not ideal to explore that beautiful city, but they would do what they could. At one point, Chuck froze in place and said, in a whisper, "There's a man in the doorway ahead. I think he's got a submachine gun."

Casey grunted and said, "Yeah. He's a cop." Casey gestured at the building on the other side of the narrow street, the building the cop was facing. "That's the synagogue."

"Ah," said Chuck, feeling a little saddened that such precautions were necessary. He nodded to the cop, standing in the cold doorway as they passed.

They walked for a couple of hours, along the grounds of the beautiful Belvedere Palace with its Baroque architecture, and down to the river to meander along its western bank for a while. Casey commented that it's funny that so many ancient cities are along the Danube. Sarah said, "Not odd at all, Case. Before the internal combustion engine and halfway decent roads, the rivers were the only real highways people had. If you wanted to move goods or people easily, you established yourself along a river. If you think of the rivers as highway systems, the ancient settlements make much more sense. It's one of the reasons Russia has historically been so poor. It's got crappy river systems."

Chuck loved Vienna and vowed to come back to listen to a concert or two someday.

They were up early the next morning and spent an hour lifting weights in the hotel's gym followed by a five kilometer run. Sarah and Casey selected the route of their run to show Chuck more of the city. In the sunshine, the architecture was even more beautiful. After a while, they found the lovely Burggarten park to run through.

After showering and a breakfast of excellent coffee and pastries, they left for the drive to Munich. Chuck was concerned that he was getting spoiled with European coffee and wouldn't appreciate American coffee anymore. He made a mental note to ask Casey what kind of coffee he had at home. The last stop in Vienna was at a gift shop to buy presents for Ellie, Devon and Morgan. Chuck insisted on filling them up with snacks and drinks for the road, and managed to find an adapter so he could play his music through the car's stereo system. For Casey's tastes, he had loaded a wide selection of blues music.

On the E60 outside of Vienna, Casey was driving with Chuck in the passenger seat and Sarah behind. Using an encrypted hotspot standard with the CIA vehicle, Chuck was about to start reviewing the files on Federov. Before he started though, he checked a few things. An email from Ellie which he returned, assuring her that he and Sarah were having fun and staying safe. He went into the email he used to communicate with Yuri and left a message that a $200,000 bonus was coming his way.

Finally, he went to the message board in case Bryce had left a message under a thread about weapons. There it was. A message from Sam Wilson on a thread dealing with the Colt 1911A1, the heavy semi-auto pistol with the stopping power of a large truck. Wilson had posted a picture of the weapon with a review which raved about its characteristics.

"Guys, Bryce reached out. It's the first time. There's a message from him here."

Sarah said, "Let me see." He held the computer up so she could see the screen. "It's just a picture of a gun..."

"Hang on, Sarah. Let me find the message in the picture." Chuck downloaded the picture to his computer, which took a surprisingly long time as the file was very large. Once it was downloaded, he enlarged it on his screen up to its full resolution. Having been taken with the high megapixel camera that Chuck had provided Bryce, even when enlarged to its utmost, the image was very sharp. He began to move around the background of the photo. Prominent in the center of the picture was the pistol sitting on a desk. It was well lit and clear. Looking at the background of the room with the desk, it had been taken in a hotel room and there were the usual signs on the door about checkout times and whatnot (readable because of the resolution of the camera). A sliver of the bathroom was visible through a partially open door. There were some papers on the desk in the corner of the shot. A crumpled up magazine was in the trash can to one side. Chuck spent time looking at those, but found no message. He started through the picture again, moving slowly from top to bottom. There it was. In the mirror of the bathroom, through the partially opened door, there was a short message written reversed, mirror imaged. When he reversed it in his head the message said, "wa' maHvaD loD 'Iv ghung."

He held up the screen for Sarah to see. "You have to reverse it, like a mirror."

She looked at the Klingon sentence and mentally reversed it. She pointed, "I don't know that word."

"Hungry," said Chuck.

"The man who was hungry was one of us," said Sarah. "Who was hungry?"

"Evans," said Chuck. "Bryce couldn't use the proper name for the country, as it wouldn't be translated. So, he used a homonym instead. Evans was Fulcrum."

"Dammit. Well done, Bartowski," said Casey. "Better call Graham."

Chuck did so right away. Graham picked up, "Graham, secure."

"Bartowski, secure. You are on the speaker. I'm in the car with Casey and Sarah. Sir, we have received the first message from Operation Thirty. Evans was Fulcrum."

"Shit. Okay. I got the coroner's report this morning. The man was tortured to death. Pretty brutally. Whoever had him only kept him for a couple of days, but they didn't waste any time. No softening up. Seems they went right for the hard stuff."

"Sir," said Sarah, "It might not have anything to do with Fulcrum. Could have been something else he was working on."

"Yes. You are right, of course. But I need you to send a message back to Operation Thirty. There was a similar murder in Venice last month. A State Department guy at the consulate there. Also tortured to death. We kept it out of the papers. Ask our man if that guy was Fulcrum also. Maybe there's a connection."

"Yes, Sir. I'll do that," said Chuck.

"While I have you, team, you should know that there has been blowback from the bodies found in Budapest. Selenica and his men," said Graham, but he didn't sound angry.

"Oh? What kind of blowback, Sir?" asked Sarah.

"Well, the Hungarians interviewed the prisoners you saved. They couldn't describe any of you, but the man who freed them had explained to them that they would be tranked and freed. Seems he spoke to them in Russian. The Hungarians spoke to the local FSB chief and complained about the Russians operating covert teams inside Hungary, but, at the same time, thanked them for stopping a truck bomb attack and saving lives." He was laughing as he finished the story.

Casey was laughing too. "What did the Russians have to say?" he asked.

"They said, we have no idea what you are talking about and you're welcome." At that, they all started to laugh.

"So that worked out well, I guess," said Chuck.

"Yes, it did," said Graham. "Alright. Thank you for the information on Evans. See if you can find out anything about the Venice guy. Talk to you later, team."

They broke the connection. Chuck went onto the message board and left a message under the name Worf that said, "canal loD 'ej? [And the canal man?]

The drive wasn't particularly scenic, looking like a typical highway for most of the start of the journey. Chuck turned back to begin his research into Federov. He knew there were a number of other wedding guests of interest to his team, but didn't have a list to work through.

He knew that he could use his hacking skills to get the guest list from the hotel's computer, but he had sworn off hacking several years ago. At the time, he had been a wanted man in the United States and several foreign countries (and a few dozen US states as well). He supposed he still was, although he had been quiescent for so long that he thought it likely that all the investigations had been discontinued or labeled inactive. It wasn't the danger that had made him stop. Well, not totally, anyway. He had read in the papers about a man about his own age who had climbed the outside of tall buildings for fun, just because they were there and he had the skills and strength to do it. The news report was that the man had fallen to his death from a building in Hong Kong. Hundreds of buildings climbed without a problem and one tiny mistake ended it. Chuck immediately saw the similarities in their positions. Was the risk still worth the reward? He knew he could do it, hack into any system he wanted. He had proven his abilities to his satisfaction, so why continue? Chuck had made a deal with himself, and those were the hardest deals to break. If Stanford renewed his scholarship for the last year of school, he'd give up the Piranha persona and stop hacking. So, he had stopped hacking. Of course, it all came to nothing when they expelled him, but a deal's a deal.

As the drive continued, it became harder and harder to pay attention to the computer screen in his lap as the scenery went from boring to much more interesting. The Austrian Alps were visible to their left and, although they were on a flat plain, Chuck loved the views to their south. As densely populated as Austria was, there was a lot of snowy farmland for Chuck to contemplate.

They stopped for lunch just a few kilometers off the A8, in the small Austrian city of Ried im Innkreis, finding a small restaurant serving beer and sausage off the tidy main square of the town. Chuck was really enjoying himself and the new experiences at every turn. Sarah seemed to be enjoying his enjoyment, while Casey seemed to be merely tolerant of it.

As they were waiting for their meals to arrive, Sarah said, out of the blue, "I've been thinking. When you stop in DC to teach the class in cracking the phone, I'm going to go with you. I'm going to stay with you in DC."

Chuck grinned, "Great. You can show me around. I've never been to..."

"I'm going to close up my apartment there. Surrender the lease at the end of the month. Ship all the rest of my stuff home, to our home...I'm going to notify the Agency that I'm moving my permanent address to LA," she said, looking at him under her lashes with a small smile.

"You are?" Chuck asked. Surprise quickly gave way to joy, as he realized the implications of what she had said. Even if they got the Intersect out of his head and he was no longer useful as a member of the team, she'd stay. She'd stay in LA. She'd stay with him. She was going to stay. Maybe she'd have to travel a lot on missions and stuff, but all sorts of people traveled for business. She would come back to him. To home. To her home. With him. He thought that his face might break from the grin he was wearing. He could feel the pressure in his eyes and knew he might start crying from happiness at any moment.

"Good idea, Walker," said Casey, nodding sagely and sipping his excellent local beer. "Probably save money. Your housing stipend for staying in LA probably doesn't cover the cost of the DC apartment. Losing the stipend will be more than offset by the rent savings."

"Yeah, Case." By this point, Sarah's grin matched Chuck's and she couldn't look away from the eyes of the man she loved. "That's just what I was thinking. I was just being practical."

She reached for Chuck's hand and held it as they looked deeply into each other's eyes while grinning their faces off.

Casey said, "I'm going to wash my hands before we eat." He got up and left the table. He deliberately didn't look back, certain that there would be kissing happening there.

The highway driving into Munich was smooth and they had made very good time. Given that they were to be under the Carmichael cover in Interlaken, Casey had arranged for them to obtain ski equipment from the Munich NSA office. They met Casey's colleague in the back of a ski shop.

It took almost three hours for the local NSA officer to outfit them with a full complement of ski gear. The most time consuming part was to deal with the bindings on the skis which had to be adjusted for weight, terrain, boot size, and skill levels and the skis themselves sharpened to Casey's somewhat exacting standards. They left the gear in the minivan, as they would be leaving for Switzerland early the next morning.

They checked into a small hotel that Casey knew which had a cozy brauhaus on the groundfloor. Sitting at a table in the restaurant Chuck asked about a large rectangular table in the center of the room with the word "Stammtisch" on a sign on the table. Casey explained, "That's the table for the regulars. It's the established table for them to come and drink from time to time, like a friendly meeting place. The table is reserved for them."

They had a delicious meal washed down with beer made by a local Munich brewery. Chuck determined that he would definitely run in the morning, as the food and drink on this trip was much more than he usually consumed.

After they had eaten, Chuck said, "Guys, I have a question. When Director Graham was talking to Bryce he mentioned a Red Test. And then when you, Sarah, were reporting on Brown you said the action had been his Red Test. What's a Red Test?"

"It's the first time an agent kills someone on the job. It's what we call it," said Sarah.

"Is it a test? A real test? Like you have to pass in order to be a real spy or something?"

"Oh, hell no. Some agents never have to do it. Never face violence on the job. There are people who believe that the best agents never pull their guns. No, that kind of test would be barbaric," said Sarah.

"When it happens, agents can react well, poorly or not at all. There's no decent training we can give to prepare someone for the consequences of doing it for real," said Casey. "With everything going on now, we're getting a lot of combat veterans coming into the business. They've been through it already and can usually handle it just fine. But civilians, who've never had to deal with it, can ...well, it can be tough on them sometimes. Not all the time, of course, people's reactions can vary greatly, but sometimes. That's why Sarah and I sat with Brown Tuesday night..."

"And why you gave him your card. If he wanted to talk," said Chuck. Casey nodded, his mood growing somber. He was clearly thinking about one or more instances in his past.

Sorry that he'd brought the conversation down a bit, Chuck changed topics and said, "There's a juke box over there. I'm going to put on some music."

He moved to the juke box, pulling coins from his pocket as he did. He began to study the music choices when one of the middle-aged men from the stammtisch came to his side.

"You are a visitor?" the man asked in English, also looking at the music selection.

"Yes, just passing through," said Chuck.

"From America?" Chuck nodded. "Where?"

"Los Angeles," said Chuck.

The man's face brightened to a smile and he said, "LA? That's wonderful. I visited my cousin in LA a few years ago. Maybe you know him..Jans Schmidt?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know him," said Chuck, smiling.

"Ah well, it was too much to expect. It's such a big city. What music are you thinking about?" They discussed music for a little longer. Chuck put on a song by the Rough Badgers that the other man approved of. The man stuck out his hand and said, "I'm Ben."

"I'm Chuck. Good to meet you."

When he sat back down, Casey said, "What was that about?"

"Nothing. He was just being friendly," said Chuck.

Shortly, the waitress came over with another round of beers for them. Sarah said, in German, "we didn't order these."

The waitress pointed to the table in the middle of the room, occupied by Ben and his friends. When Sarah, Casey and Chuck looked their way, the men raised their glasses in salute. Chuck, Sarah and Casey raised their beers in turn and, smiling, said, "Danke schöne."

Casey said, "We have to buy them a round."

Sarah said, "Case, it would be a nice thing to do, but it's a terrible idea."

"Walker, it's just polite," he said.

"I know. But if we do that, they are going to invite us to join them. We will start drinking with those guys and, I hate to say it, but I think they are much better at drinking than we are. We will get royally hammered. We're tired. We've been on the road all day. This really might end up really badly."

"It's the right thing to do," said Casey.

Sarah said, "Chuck, back me up here."

Chuck said, "You are right, Sarah. If we buy them a round we will probably sit with them and get very, very drunk. But...I agree with Casey. We should do it."

"Oh, boy," said Sarah with a sigh, signaling for the waitress.

When they got the round of drinks, the seven men at the stammtisch invited them to join them at the table. And they did so. From that point forward the evening was drinking and laughing and drinking and laughing. The men at the table were very good company, even though Chuck and Casey did not speak German and only a few of them spoke decent English. (Sarah was completely fluent in German, of course.) As Sarah had predicted, the men were very accomplished drinkers.

Sometime later, one of the men was saying to Sarah that Chuck understood everything said in German, even if he couldn't speak any. Somehow, as drunk as he was, Chuck understood that. But he saw Casey get up and head, not completely steadily, to the men's room. He gave Sarah a look to indicate that he was going to help his friend.

He found Casey bent over the toilet preparing to puke up the copious quantities of alcohol he had consumed. Casey began to sway slightly and Chuck moved to grab him to steady him. Before Chuck could do so, Casey reached out with his left hand to grab a nearby pipe. There was a hissing sound and he pulled his hand away from the live steam pipe. Looking down at his hand he said to Chuck, with a certain amount of good humor, "You know, Chuck, if I was sober this would hurt like a bitch."

Unlike the morning in Vienna, the morning in Munich was not begun with exercise. They headed directly for coffee, and a lot of it. None of them had much appetite and they were speaking in very quiet voices, when they talked at all. At one point, Casey looked down at his left hand and said, "Guys, why does my hand hurt?"

Chuck took most of the driving duty on the road between Munich and Interlaken. With a stop for lunch it was almost seven hours of mountain driving through some of the most spectacular scenery Chuck had ever seen. It wasn't too long outside of Munich that they found themselves in the Bavarian Alps. Chuck had expected the mountains to be beautiful, but the real thing was vastly beyond his expectations. The sharp peaks, snow covered sides, Alpine lakes glittering blue, terrifying drop offs down sheer cliffs, and cozy mountain chalets were all postcard vistas. One after another they were spectacular.

It was the last turn that really took his breath away. Their destination, the town of Interlaken, came into view suddenly. As befits its name, it was nestled between two lakes. Chuck had looked at the map before starting out and he remembered that the lake to the west was Thunersee and the lake to the east was Brienzersee, each lake a long rough oval running away from the town. The dark blue of the waters was set off by the white of the snow on the rugged mountains rising on all sides from the dual lakes. The sun was setting early in the mountains and the lights of the town were already sparkling against the water. He could see tiny moving spots on the mountainsides, as the last skiers of the day made their way down.

The hotel was a huge old extravagant affair. Starched bellman in overcoats met their car and took the baggage and a valet took the car. Making their way across the luxurious lobby to the check in desk, Casey and Sarah spotted at least three Russians and their dates moving around the area.

As they were checking in the formal desk clerk told them, "Ah yes, the Carmichael party. Excellent. Welcome. The first member of your party arrived this morning. Very good." Chuck and Sarah looked at each other with confusion. Casey merely looked enigmatic.

Once at their suite, the bellman knocked on the door. The door opened and Amy Turner said, with her characteristic exuberance and a huge smile, "Hi, guys. You miss me?"

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A/N2: Spotting the cop with the gun across from the synagogue happened to me one winter's night in Vienna. It's a sad commentary indeed.

A/N3: Steve, Mark, if you read this and shudder at the description of the stammtisch in the Munich brauhaus and the memories (or lack thereof) that it brings back, sorry, guys. It was too good a story to pass by.