A/N: I wrote down who owns Chuck and put the note in a safe place. If any of you can help me remember where I put it, we can talk about it then.

A/N2: Welcome to the seventeenth arc of New Day, which I'm calling the Bennett arc. It is based on Chuck vs. The Sensei (Season 2, Episode 9). I think it might just be assumed at this point that I'm moving the episodes around at my discretion. Trust me though, it's not random. The last chapter was very action heavy. This one is not. Our friends are sitting around and talking about stuff. I have to admit, I like these chapters too. I get to hear my friends chat, and I always enjoy that. But first...

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Andor Farkas, in his Budapest law office, was staring at his computer screen. He was reading over the same paragraph for the third time. He feared it was a disservice to his clients, charging them by the minute as he read and re-read the same paragraph, but the language just didn't make any sense to him. It was probably worth it for him figure out what the hell the other lawyer was trying to do.

The phone buzzed and he saw it was Anna's line.

"Igen, Anna?" he said. [Yes, Anna?]

"A Kossuth-jutalomról. Nő. Amerikai akcentus." [About the Kossuth reward. Woman. An American accent.]

"Ugyanaz a nő?" [Same woman?]

"Talán." [Maybe.] Said with a verbal shrug. Anna had reacted with excitement the first time they had gotten a call about the missing Kossuth baby, but no longer did so.

"OK." He pushed a button on his phone. With the push of that button, the call was being recorded. He picked up the line as the call was put through.

"Hello. Andor Farkas."

"Are you the lawyer? The attorney?" As Anna had said, a woman's voice speaking English. American accent.

"Yes. And who are you?"

"How do I get the reward?" she asked, ignoring his question.

"We need proof that you have the child. It's not so easy."

"What do you mean?"

"Ma'am, since the child went missing, every time a young woman shows up with a baby in a new town, the authorities get a call... a dozen calls. They have had thousands of tips. Thousands and thousands. People calling about babies. From all over the world. You can imagine. Over and over again. You are one of the few who have called me... my office. Most call the police. There's a lot of money at stake here. We can't just take your word for it, that you have the baby, I mean."

"I have the baby," she said.

"I mean no disrespect, Ma'am, but I'm going to need you to prove it to me."

"What do you need?"

"Tell me about the birthmark."

Silence. Then a click as the connection was cut.

With a sigh, he went back to reading the paragraph, now for the fourth time.

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The four owners of Carmichael Industries sat at Chuck and Sarah's dining room table. Sarah had her computer out in front of her.

"Ok, I've made a list," she said. Looking at Chuck, she continued, "The number I need right now is the number of hackers we will be hiring."

Chuck said, "At least twenty, to get started. It will depend on how many contracts we get from the IC to check their systems."

Amy chuckled, "The IC hiring CI."

Sarah said, "Assume we eventually get all of the IC agencies."

"Shit, then it will be hundreds of hackers. There are eighteen agencies if we include the ODNI."

Casey said, "Too much overhead to carry when we are just starting out. We don't want to hire people before we get the contracts. We hire people as we need them, not before."

Sarah said, "Yeah, that makes sense. Only hire as many as you need at the time."

"Ok, so twenty hackers, the four of us, what else? How many more?" asked Chuck.

"Receptionist. Maybe a secretary to two," said Amy.

"Bookkeeper or something like that. Pay bills and collect the money owed us," said Casey.

"Ok," said Sarah. "So, let's say thirty people total."

"Right," said Chuck. "So, how much is that?"

"Well, the 'rule of thumb,'" Sarah used air quotes for the words, "...I found online would say about 9,000 square feet of space."

"So, we round up to 10,000," said Chuck.

"No, we don't round up, Moron," said Casey. "I don't want to take more space than we need. That's a waste of money."

Amy laughed and said, "I can see you are going to the be the one of us that keeps the costs to a minimum."

Casey, nodding, said, "Damn straight."

"Ok," said Sarah. "Should we talk to a real estate person? A broker person? Someone to help us find 9,000 square feet of space in Los Angeles?"

"I guess," said Amy. "Do we know any of those people?"

"Well, there's a woman who found Big Mike the house he bought."

"No. That's a residential broker. We need a commercial office broker. Different guys," said Casey.

"I'll ask John," said Sarah. "He probably won't know, but his law firm has an office here, so he has LA partners. At least one of them should know someone here in town. Saves us from going through the phone book."

"That's a good idea, Sweetie."

Sarah made a note on her computer.

"So, when we get space, we can start to hire?" asked Amy.

"We need the contracts from the government first," said Sarah.

"Where does that stand?" asked Casey.

"I asked both Beckman and Langston for the names of the contacts we should talk to. I'm assuming that they want us to try to penetrate both agencies," she said.

"Not 'try,'" said Chuck, with a little smirk.

Amy laughed. Even Casey chuckled. "That's the business," said Casey. "That's the product we are selling them."

Chuck gave Casey a happy smile and said, "Yeah, it is. Right?"

Amy said, "When they give us the contact info, we call them?"

"Yup. The four of us will hammer out a business deal with them. I won't do that alone. Then they send us a contract draft and then the negotiations on the written words begin. John gave me some good guidance here. I'm not expecting the negotiations after that to be too challenging," said Sarah.

"Why not, Walker?" asked Casey.

She grinned and said, "Because John will be on the phone with me. I have a good feeling with him there. I'll have to make the business decisions, but I trust him with the rest of it. And, as to the business stuff, he'll give his advice."

"The time frame for the work has to be long enough. We aren't going to be ready to give them results too fast."

"Don't worry, Sweetie. We won't agree to any timelines you aren't comfortable with."

"And we can't guaranty that they will never be hacked. I mean, after we produce our report. We could find a thousand holes and someone finds the one we missed," said Chuck.

"Of course not," said Sarah. "It's not like we are offering cyber-insurance or something. John explained to me that it's like the guys who make bullet-resistant glass. They are never allowed to sell it as 'bullet-proof,' only 'bullet resistant.' We are going to be working the same way."

They had decided that Sarah would be the one doing the negotiations with the government. She was the Chief Executive Officer of the newly formed company. Casey was the President. Amy was the Chief Administrative Officer. Chuck was the Chief Information Officer. In all honesty, they didn't really have too much idea what the titles meant.

"It will take a while to get the contracts signed anyway," said Casey. "Nothing in the government happens fast."

"That's good, I guess. I've created my test on the website, but no hits yet. I'm sort of disappointed. Maybe I made it too hard."

"Bullshit, Kid. If they can't pass your test, we don't want them. With the service we are offering, I don't see how you can make it too hard."

"Ok. That makes sense. I put the word out on some of the dark web sites, but some of those guys might be scared of the light."

"What's that mean?"

"Well, they might have been in the shadows forever. What if they are afraid to come out and do this for a living? With attribution. What if some of them have...I don't know, pending indictments or something?"

Sarah made a note on her computer. "Ok, question for John. We know these people are going to need some level of security clearance. Can we make it a precondition to the contract that the people working on it have any pending indictments or whatever dropped? While they are getting the security clearances?"

Amy started laughing. "You realize how insane that sounds?"

Chuck chuckled, "That might actually be an incentive to recruiting."

There was a knock on the door.

Sarah glanced at her watch and said, "Oop. I lost track of time. That's Ellie."

Sarah went to the door and, after checking the peephole, she opened the door to her best friend.

Ellie gave her a hug. Ellie looked at the team and said, "Oh, spy stuff?"

"Nope, Carmichael Industries."

"Should I come back?"

"No, no, no. We're just about done." Sarah looked at the others and said, "Talk among yourselves," with a laugh and a wave of her hand. Turning to Ellie she said, "Ok. Let's do it. Come on. We can talk in here." Sarah led Ellie into the office/guest room and they sat around the card table.

"Engagement party," said Ellie. "We need a list. I've been working on it. I have, from your side, the Grahams, all of them. Kevin and Mickey and the kids, who I'm so looking forward to meeting, Karen plus one, Langston and ..Ann?

"Anna"

"Right. Then we have Rachel Bernstein plus one."

"It will be Brian Murphy, so we might as well invite him by name."

"You've told me about your friend Carina. Can you track her down?"

"She doesn't even know I'm getting married. I reached out, but she's deep under, so it's not easy."

"Does Amy get a plus one or just invite that hot British studmuffin?"

"I'd go with plus one. I don't know how much of a couple they are, you know, as opposed to an extended one-night stand."

"Got it. Any others I'm missing?"

"I...I..." said Sarah. She was thinking hard about other women she knew.

Ellie saw Sarah's hesitancy. "Oh, girlfriend. Forget the party for a second. Did you even decide on your bridesmaids yet?" asked Ellie.

"Well, Karen, Rachel, Amy, Carina, and..."

"What? What are you thinking?"

"I don't have a lot of friends. I've known you for six months and you are already the best friend I've ever had. Ever. In my whole life... better than anyone. I don't know how to figure out who to ask to be a bridesmaid. How do I even figure out who is a friend like that?"

"Can I give you my standard? You don't have to adopt it or anything, it's just what I use in my life."

"Of course."

"A friend is someone to whom you can say anything at all and never affect the friendship in the slightest. Anything. Whatever it is. If you have to censor yourself, it's something else."

"Wow...not a lot of people fall into that category. Especially for a spy...or a conwoman."

"Nope. It's a pretty special category, even for a non-secret agent type person. But think about it a second. How many people do you have like that?"

"Yeah. Not too many at all." Sarah thought about it and, to her surprise, started to tear up a little bit. "Sorry," she wiped at her eyes. "I just realized again how special you and your family are to me."

"Aw, Sweetie," said Ellie, pulling the younger woman into a hug. "I didn't mean to make you cry. It's a good thing, thinking about your friends."

"I know. But what I now realize is that until Chuck...until you and Chuck and your family...I didn't know that I had any. I never thought about it. And now I do. And I like it. Think about where I came from, Ellie. Not just the spy stuff, but before that. Thank God for the Grahams."

"So, who are you thinking about as a friend that's not on this list. Who do you want for your bridesmaids that you haven't mentioned?"

"Mei-ling."

"OK, Mei-ling." said Ellie. "That's easy."

"No, it's not so easy. She's a Chinese spy."

"Chinese?"

"Yeah."

Ellie frowned. "Oh, yeah, that's not so easy," said Ellie, with a moment's thought.

"Nope."

"Can you deal with it?"

"I hope so. I have to think about it."

"Anybody else?"

"Yeah. Marie. She's a French spy. I like her a lot."

"Is she the one who helped you guys in Rome? The one who Casey visited in Nice?"

"Yeah. She's pretty cool. I think you'd like her. Hell, I think you'd like them all." Sarah looked a little wistful for a moment.

"What's that look? What are you thinking?"

"Zondra Rizzo. We were together on a team. Carina, Amy, Zondra and me. We concluded that there was a traitor among us and I concluded it was Zondra. Before that she had been my best friend on the team. I...worry that I was unfair to her, but I can't reach out to her now. Too much time has passed and I'm too embarrassed about the way I treated her. Hell, what if I was right and she was the traitor? I don't know. But it's something I regret."

"Ok, let's leave that one be, then. So, you have six bridesmaids in total, right?. Karen, Rachel, Carina, Amy, Mei-ling, and Marie?"

"Yeah. But three of them I have yet to ask."

"OK, but you should ask them before the invite to the engagement party, right?"

"Yeah. If I can. Maire and Mei-ling should be fine, so long as they aren't undercover. I'll get to Carina when she comes out."

"How...I don't know...how 'deep' is she? I don't even know that that means."

"It's Carina. She goes as 'deep' as it takes. She has no boundaries that way."

"Oh, my," said Ellie.

"Yeah. Carina is … well she's special. She's a close friend, but..."

"Ok. So, you'll get to her if and when you can."

"Yeah, exactly."

"Ok. Anyone else for the engagement party? Anyone from Langley or something?"

"No. We're good with the folks you've named. Want me to check with Chuck for his guys?"

"Naw. I figured his list out already. I included Fitz and his guys, of course, giving each a plus one. I love those guys, by the way. What a ...solid bunch. Guys who will always have your back."

"One hundred percent. Great guys. I feel lucky we've been assigned here with them."

"I'm still trying to catch up to life, Sarah. Six months ago, I didn't know my best friend, who is also my future sister, or any of the men in my brother's wedding party. It's moving pretty fast, Sweetie."

"Yeah. No shit," said Sarah with a grin, giving her best friend a hug.

"Ok," said Ellie, shaking herself. "I'm including Kevin Graham as one of Chuck's groomsmen."

"Yeah, that's right. I don't have a brother, but he's closest."

"Ok. That leaves Chuck a man short. You have six and he only has five."

"Umm, one of the Buy More guys? I don't know? Big Mike?" asked Sarah.

"I don't know. God knows Big Mike would be better than Jeff or Lester."

"Oh, God yes," said Sarah.

"Ok. We have to think about that."

"Ok," said Sarah. "I'll ask Chuck."

"Good. Beckman?"

"Hummm. That's a good question. Let me talk to Chuck about that, too. Maybe Casey. She's his boss. I think probably though. We're inviting Langston. It would be pretty insulting to invite one and not the other."

"Ok. Makes sense. Plus one?" Sarah shrugged her confusion. "So, with this amount of people we can definitely fit in O'Malley's or any of the other places we looked at." said Ellie.

"I like O'Malley's, but we will want to make sure neither Morgan nor Eileen are working. I want them as guests, not staff."

"Sure. Any way to do that with Jackie and his wife?" asked Ellie.

"I don't see how. It's his place."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Ok. So, it's Jackie's. When?" asked Sarah.

"I don't know," said Ellie. "Let's think about how long for folks to get their shit together. My side is easy. You have people coming in from Paris and Beijing and God knows where."

"Ok," said Sarah. "But folks coming in for the wedding might not also come in for the engagement party."

"True, but this was a good start. We got a lot accomplished. You have your to-do list. I have mine. We are good." said Ellie.

"Excellent," said Sarah with a huge smile.

They went back into the living room. The mood had changed. Casey was on the phone pacing angrily and grunting. Angry disagreement grunts, if Sarah was translating them correctly.

Chuck said, in a quiet voice, "Beckman."

Ellie said, "Spy stuff. I'm gone." She kissed Amy, Sarah and Chuck on their cheeks and left the apartment.

Sarah looked at Amy and Chuck, who shrugged in confusion. Neither of them knew what the call was about. They looked at each other with worried expressions.

Casey said, "Ma'am, I couldn't disagree more forcefully. This team is in the perfect position to track him down...No, Ma'am, my history with him will only help...No, Ma'am...No...Yes. I see. I understand."

Casey hung up with Beckman and came back to the table. Chuck saw the look on his friend's face and left the table to get the bottle of Johnny Walker and a glass. He poured Casey a healthy dram.

Casey knocked back the brown liquor and said, "Beckman. Under truth serum White just keeps talking and talking. She gave up another name. Ty Bennett. Instructor at the NSA. Combatives."

Sarah said, "A legend, I think. I've heard of him. He's been around for years."

"What's combatives?" asked Chuck.

"It's what the military calls hand-to-hand combat," answered Sarah.

"Yeah," growled Casey, clearly upset. "Well, that legend is a recruiter for Fulcrum now...He's getting some of the younger agents...just trainees, and encouraging them to betray their oaths. To betray their country."

Casey settled into a funk.

"So, what happened to this guy? He was named, so? Did they pick him up?" asked Sarah.

"Tried. They sent a five man team to pick him up. He beat the hell out of them and escaped. He's in the wind."

"Case, you knew him, huh?" asked Chuck.

"Yeah, he was my sensei."

"What's that?"

Sarah answered for him. "The translation is master or teacher, but it's considered a bit of a term of honor in martial arts. But Casey, you've been training for decades. You must have had dozens of sensei's over the years. Hell, you probably ran instruction sometimes where you were the class's sensei yourself. Why is Bennett so important to you?"

"I was messed up. It was early in my training. In my career with the NSA. I had my head up my ass. I was always focused on ambition. He helped me. He wasn't exactly a sensei, he was maybe more of a mentor. Someone I looked up to and respected. To this day, there are any number of times when I'm trying to decide what to do and I think of something he taught me."

"So, this reveal that he's Fulcrum...you're upset..." said Chuck.

"I'm pissed off," said Casey with a ferocious growl.

"Right. That's what I said."

"Son of a bitch was teaching me. Was a guide. An example to me of a of a good man. And to find out that he's a traitor...I want to kill the bastard." Casey slammed his empty whisky glass down on the table hard enough to crack it. "Sorry," he said, a little embarrassed. "l didn't mean..."

"Never mind," said Chuck. He took the cracked glass to the kitchen and came back with a new one for his friend.

"Ok," said Chuck. "What's our mission?"

Casey grunted in frustration. "We don't have one. We were told to stand down. I'm too emotional about it she said and she doesn't want me involved."

Sarah frowned.

"OK," said Chuck. "Needless to say, we agree with you that her decision is a mistake. So, what are we going to do about Bennett?"

Amy said, "I don't understand. General Beckman told us not to get involved."

"I know, Amy, but that doesn't necessarily stop us. This guy is wanted. Him being in the wind is a problem for Casey. So, let's go get him."

"What if Beckman is pissed off that we didn't stand down?" asked Amy.

Chuck shrugged. "Yeah. What if? How about we worry about it then? And remember, they only get pissed off if you fail. If you succeed, they forgive."

"So, let's succeed," said Sarah with a grin.

Amy looked at her teammates and said, "Ok. We do it." She giggled. "You guys are fun."

"Right, let's pull up the files on this guy. Casey, you'll tell us whatever you can in addition."

"Awright, Kid. Let's do it," said Casey with a grim expression.

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A/N3: Ellie's definition of a friend is one I use in my own life. It truly limits the category, but, I think, in a good way. I'd love to take credit for it, but I read it about forty years ago in a Travis McGee book by John D. MacDonald. Think about it a bit and let it settle in. It's pretty eye-opening.

A/N4: Once again, I must thank you all for continuing to follow my neverending story. You are the reason I write. That's no joke. Without you, this nutty hobby would be no fun at all. So, thank you. If you liked what I did this time around, let me know. If you didn't, let me know. You know what? Just let me know what you are thinking. And stay safe my friends. It's a scary time out there now.