A/N: Thanks for continuing to read this story and for the reviews which are keeping me writing it.

Huge thanks to Capt Lil who quickly beta'd this so that I could publish it a week after the last update.

This chapter covers the events of "Chuck Versus the Tic Tac." Even though Shaw wasn't in the episode, and the references to him irrelevant, this was a hard chapter to write as there were other things I wanted to change.

Don't Walk Away

Chapter 11: Alex

The evening bringing Ellie up to speed was hard.

At first, when Chuck said that Sarah wasn't just a frozen yogurt store manager but a CIA operative, Ellie thought it was one of his crazy jokes, but the serious look on Sarah's face caused her to stop shaking her head at the stupidity of it. She looked at Sarah and asked, "Is this for real? You're a spy?"

Sarah nodded. "I work for the CIA."

"I thought the CIA only worked abroad and not in this country," Ellie replied, still not believing it.

"That's mostly true, but things are different here," Sarah replied.

"So, why is a spy here with my brother?" Then, Ellie's breath caught and she went off at a tangent. "Oh god! Does that mean your relationship isn't real?"

"Oh, it's real!" Chuck said.

Sarah didn't want to brush Ellie off that easily. "It wasn't real at the start, Ellie. It was just a cover. I'm sorry I wasn't truthful with you."

Ellie's features hardened. "So, when did this pretend relationship become real?"

That was hard to say. Sarah paused in thought. "God! You can't tell me that?" Ellie snapped.

"Chuck went away for a few weeks," Sarah finally responded. "I think the relationship changed when he was away, and became physical when he got back."

Chuck was blushing hard now. "Ellie we want to tell you the whole thing, but we can't if you leap to the end."

"Give them a chance, babe," Devon said to his wife. Ellie sat back and nodded.

"It all started when I received an email on my twenty-sixth birthday." He paused for a second. "From Bryce Larkin."

Ellie leaned forward and cried, "What the fuck?!"

Devon pulled her back. "Listen."

"I thought it was weird that he'd send me a birthday email after so many years of silence, and what he'd done, but I opened it. I was pretty fed up with all the girls at the party, so him sending me something from a game we had worked on attracted me."

"A game?" Ellie asked.

"Zork, but that's not important. It asked a question and I responded and images flashed before me. I don't know how long that lasted, because I passed out after a while." He looked at his sister. "I downloaded a thing called the Intersect. A program and all the data belonging to the CIA and NSA."

She just sat open mouthed. "You expect me to believe this?"

"It's true, Ellie," Sarah said. "I was sent to retrieve it, but couldn't because it was in his head."

"So, I became the property of the government and Sarah and Casey were stuck here to both keep me from harm and to use that capability."

"Hold on. Casey too?"

"He's NSA."

She just nodded. "I should've guessed that. He was so military-like."

"Every time I was out at crazy hours, we were on missions," Chuck said.

Ellie glared at Sarah. "And how does that keep him safe?"

Sarah looked at her friend. "Our bosses demanded it, so we had to go along with it, but my focus all along was Chuck's safety."

"The safety of this Intersect!" Ellie snarked.

"No!" Sarah said forcefully. "Chuck's safety. Even though we couldn't be in a real relationship, I wanted him safe." She looked at Chuck and stroked his cheek. "I fell for him almost immediately."

Ellie frowned. "So, what changed?"

Chuck responded, "I'm no longer an asset."

"Oh god! You're a spy now!" Ellie shrieked.

He shook his head. "No, I'm an analyst because I can't kill anyone."

Sarah winced. She wished he hadn't said that. Ellie sharply looked at her. "And you do?"

"If necessary," Sarah quietly said.

"To keep Chuck safe?"

"Not only then, but yes."

Thankfully Ellie didn't push that point. She went in a different direction. "Where did you go for all that time?"

He swallowed and answered, "Budapest. The NSA has a training facility there. They were training me to become a spy."

Ellie looked at Sarah, harshly asking, "And how did you think this was keeping him safe?"

"I didn't. I didn't want him to go through that. I went out there to get him away. We'd leave and never be seen again."

Ellie gasped but said, "But that didn't happen."

"No," Sarah said.

"I told her I couldn't go," Chuck said. "But I couldn't explain why because I'd give in."

Ellie glared at him. "What she'd done to make it possible can't have been easy and then you refused, and didn't explain why?"

"He did… eventually," Sarah said. Ellie looked confused.

"Sarah didn't let me just walk away and made me explain myself," Chuck said, looking embarrassed.

A smile started to appear on Ellie's lips but then disappeared. "But you stayed."

"It was partly because he couldn't face leaving you, Ellie. If we'd gone through with my plan, we'd never be able to come back here."

Ellie looked upset. "So, it's my fault you're a spy?"

"I wanted to be a spy to help people, as well," Chuck replied.

"We'll come back to that stupidity," Ellie snapped, but turned to Sarah. "You said the relationship became real while he was away."

"We kissed and admitted our feelings for each other on that platform before he went back to the facility," Sarah stated.

"And then you parted. For how long?"

"Five weeks. The hardest five weeks of my life," Sarah admitted.

Ellie's eyes rolled. "Only you two could admit your love for each other and then stay apart for five weeks!"

Sarah smiled. "I said we admitted our feelings, not that we said we loved each other."

Ellie snorted. "I could see you both loved each other long before this. If you didn't admit that you lied to each other."

"Babe!" Devon admonished her.

Sarah smiled slightly. "I didn't know I was so obvious back then, but yes, we did love each other before, but it wasn't until on that platform that we did admit it to each other. It helped me through those weeks apart."

Ellie turned back to Chuck. "But you didn't become a spy. What happened?"

"I couldn't shoot to kill threats. I failed the training."

"So, you're making do, being an analyst instead?"

Chuck winced at that. "He's not 'making do'," Sarah stated. "He's brilliant and an essential part of the team."

Ellie almost smiled on hearing that, but shifted topic again, "So, John Casey is a spy, too. Does that mean everyone new in your lives is? Hannah, for instance?"

"No, she's not," Chuck replied.

"But you met her on a mission, didn't you? I thought going to Paris for the Buy More seemed hard to believe."

Chuck nodded. "It was a mission, but she was just a fellow passenger."

"That sounds unlikely. Meeting someone who could come and work for you. Far too perfect a fit."

Sarah had to stop the conversation from going down this path, or they'd have to explain the whole Daniel Shaw manipulation. "Hannah is totally innocent. I would be able to tell if she wasn't. And she's my friend." She paused for a second or two, "I don't have many," Sarah admitted.

"I used to think we were friends," Ellie muttered.

Her saying it that way really upset Sarah. She looked down. "I've always thought of you as my friend. That wasn't a lie."

"I don't know I can see you as one, after all this lying," Ellie said.

"She wasn't allowed to tell you!" Chuck cut in. "And it was thought it'd put you at risk."

"Your sister is in a state of shock," Devon said. "Give her some time."

Ellie turned to her husband. "You knew!" she hissed.

He blushed, but couldn't deny it. "I did."

She turned on him. "And you didn't tell me!"

"He was sworn to secrecy, El."

Ellie snapped at her brother, "Oh, I suppose that was for my safety, too!"

"It was," Sarah replied.

Devon gripped his wife's hands, and held on even though she tried to pull them back. "I hated not being able to tell you, but your safety is more important than anything to me."

She looked at his loving eyes and said no more. After a hug and kiss from Devon she turned back to the other couple. "So, why tell me now?"

"It's been killing me, not telling you all this time, but recently Devon got caught up in it."

Ellie gasped but listened to the story, starting with the Premier that he saved and then Fulcrum thinking he was a spy and finally the recent incident.

"So, we are at risk anyway?" she quietly asked after hearing it all.

"It seems so," Chuck said. "Saving Devon wasn't enough."

"So, we're reading you in, so that you're fully aware," Sarah said. "It would be good to have someone with your training on board, Ellie."

"We have to get away, babe," Devon said. "I can't let anything happen to you."

She glanced at him. "Is that why you've been talking about Doctors Without Borders?"

"Partly," he admitted.

"We should go for that, if only to stop people going for you," she replied. "But I have things to do here first."

She turned back to her brother. "This thing in your head. I'm going to want to scan your brain to make sure it's not damaging you at all."

No one had ever suggested it could. The two siblings got into a lengthy discussion about it, but Sarah zoned out. She was now too hung up on the thought that the Intersect might damage her boyfriend. They had to get it out. She needed to talk to his dad who had gone back into seclusion.

When they finally left Ellie and Devon's apartment, Sarah was still in deep thought.

Just at that moment, Casey's door opened and he was saying goodbye to a visitor. Chuck gasped as the man turned to walk away.

"What is it, Chuck?"

"That man is his old commanding officer, James Keller. He's high up in special ops. He's also the guy who turned Casey's former sensei, because now he's a member of the Ring."

Casey had not spotted them and had closed his apartment door. They rushed over and knocked on it. Casey opened the door and muttered, "Not now." He started to close it but Sarah pushed in. He glared at her. "I'm not in the mood to talk!"

"And we're not in the mood to ignore visits from senior Ring operatives," she snapped.

He grunted unhappily.

"Did you know he's with the Ring?" Chuck asked.

That got another grunt.

"You've not turned, have you?" Sarah asked quietly. She found it hard to believe but his lack of surprise at hearing their news made her worry. She wished she had brought a gun.

His shoulders slumped and he sat heavily on a dining chair. "It's not that simple."

"So, explain it to us, Casey!" Chuck sounded desperate.

Casey just grunted again and put his head in his hands.

Chuck responded, "Casey, I know that you used to be a Marine, Alex Coburn. I know that you were pulled out of the Marines to join a top-secret NSA black ops team in 1989 by that man, Colonel James Keller, which meant that Alex Coburn had to die, and you became John Casey. But now Keller is bad, very bad, and you can't help him."

Casey looked up. "I have to. I had a fiancée when I was Alex Coburn. She thinks I'm dead, but if I don't retrieve something and turn it over to the Ring, they're gonna kill her."

They were both surprised at all of that. "She's not in the Intersect," Chuck muttered.

"She wouldn't be. John Casey never had a fiancée," Casey replied.

Chuck was focusing on the relationship, but Sarah asked, "What is it you have to retrieve?"

"I don't know," Casey replied. "I just have to get what's inside the locker opened by this." He showed them a locker key. "They want whatever it is."

"Enough to make you get it for them," Sarah noted. "Why you?"

"Because we're going to be sent tomorrow night where it's located," Casey replied.

"You can't give them anything, Casey," she said. "You know that."

"And if I don't, the woman I loved will die," he said flatly.

"D'you know where she is?" Chuck asked.

"Somewhere in LA," he replied.

Chuck brightened. "So, we find her and get her away."

"We don't have time," Casey muttered.

"Tell me her name and I'll find her," Chuck said.

"I only know her name back then. She'll probably have married and changed her name."

I'll find her." Chuck looked confident and I was too. He added, "Child's play."

He took the details of her maiden name and where she lived back in 1989. Then he rushed to their apartment.

"I'll go and take her away. Hide her somewhere," Sarah promised.

"Same as you were going to do with Chuck?"

Sarah gaped at him. "You knew?"

"General Beckman knew. You were watched on that platform."

She was stunned. Then, she tightened her lips. "Well, this time we'll get Beckman on our side." He looked surprised, so she added, "She'll want to help."

Sarah was calling the general as Chuck rushed back. "Got her address."

The general appeared on the screen, in her uniform and obviously still in her office in spite of the time. "Something come up?"

Sarah explained with the reluctant help of Casey, who expanded on his past.

After a while, the general pursed her lips and looked at him. "I can see how tense you are, John." She never called him that, which took Sarah by surprise. "Were you going to steal it for him?" Her tone sounded sympathetic.

He looked down. "I was thinking of it." Then, he looked up. "But my partners reminded me of what's right."

Beckman nodded. She looked at Sarah. "I approve your plan to hide her, but we need to find this man and all three of you are required tomorrow night, so make sure she is self-sufficient and well aware that she is to stay hidden until we say otherwise."

Sarah nodded.

Beckman continued, "I'll work with you on this. The CIA will have to believe the drug has been stolen, so I suggest that you do exactly that."

Sarah was shocked and the others seemed the same.

The general's lips quirked, almost smiled. "It might be fun."

It made Sarah realize that there was still little love lost between the two agencies, even with Graham gone.

Sarah left Casey and Chuck to discuss it further with the general and set off to find Kathleen McHugh.

Arriving at the woman's current residence, Sarah had been thinking about her being engaged to her partner, before he became John Casey. She initially couldn't imagine abandoning the person she loved like that, and letting them think she was dead. However, she then thought that if she went on assignments without Chuck and they couldn't contact each other, how would he know whether she was alive? She would have to think about this more.

She walked to the door and knocked. A beautiful older woman answered the door. "Can I help you?"

Sarah showed her CIA badge. "Kathleen McHugh? We have reason to believe you are in danger because you were Alex Coburn's fiancée. Until we apprehend the men threatening to kill you, I need you to come with me."

The woman looked at the badge and back to Sarah's face. "Why would they be after me? Alex has been dead for over twenty years."

"I can't explain right now, but I really need to get you somewhere safe," Sarah replied. She'd always been convincing, and held Kathleen's gaze. So, she wasn't surprised when the woman's shoulders sagged and she said, "What should I bring?"

"Just some clothes."

Then, Kathleen looked suddenly perturbed. "Hold on, I have to let my daughter know."

Sarah hadn't expected that. "You can't tell her where you're going."

"But, she might come around and get caught!" Kathleen said. "I have to let her know." She seemed adamant.

Sarah had a burner in the car. "You can call her from a burner in my car, not from your phone. Leave that behind." Kathleen reluctantly agreed.

It wasn't long before they were on their way and Kathleen was using the burner. "Alex? I'm going away for a few days. Don't go to the house, it's not safe. I'll be safe, though."

Sarah heard the girl's name. 'Is that Casey's daughter?'

Sarah took her to a safe house on the outskirts of LA. Beckman had had it stocked with food and drinks. "You can't contact anyone or leave here, Kathleen. It should only be for a couple of days."

She grabbed her car keys. "I have some things I need to do, but I'll be back later and will stay here overnight. Lock the door after I leave."

Kathleen was still in a bit of a daze and just nodded as Sarah walked out, but she did hear the lock catch.

As she drove away, she called Ellie on her CIA phone. Sarah asked her friend to stay with Kathleen the following evening.

Sarah needed to understand the full plan they were going to undertake, but she also had to go home and collect clothes as she would be living with Kathleen for the next few nights. She knew Chuck wouldn't be happy with that, and she wasn't either, but it was important.

The team was sent on a trace cell mission the following evening, which was testing the CIA's security. Sarah had done them before when she was with the CATS.

Fifteen levels of security for them to bypass. It was grueling, but successful, partly thanks to the Intersect. They got to the final level and, as planned, Casey asked Sarah to stay outside and watch the door. He went inside with Chuck. It still made her feel uncomfortable not being in there with them.

They eventually came out. Chuck waived a piece of paper and Casey nodded to her, so he must've gotten what he came in for, too.

Once in the car, Casey handed a small box to Sarah. She opened it and found it just contained a tablet, nothing else. None of them knew what it was.

On leaving, Sarah drove to the safe house by a circuitous route with Chuck sitting beside her. Casey felt he should go, but she convinced him that wasn't necessary and he looked relieved.

Ellie had spent the evening with Kathleen, taking a meal and wine. She promised to stay until Sarah turned up.

Sarah let herself in first, Chuck would follow. Kathleen looked worried until she saw who it was.

"Welcome," Ellie said. Her eyes were twinkling and Kathleen looked at Sarah differently.

"What've you been telling her?" Sarah asked her friend suspiciously. Ellie knew she couldn't mention the Intersect, but Sarah hadn't told her to avoid anything else. The woman already knew she was CIA.

"Just a bit about your arrival here and how that changed everything."

"Wow! Wined and dined, entertained, and then a visit from my protector," Kathleen seemed more mellow than Sarah had expected. "And this must be the man I've heard so much about this evening."

Chuck waved nervously, "Hi. Don't believe everything my sister says about me. She tends to overdo it."

"I do not!" Ellie replied.

"Yes, you do, Ellie," Sarah said. "But then he goes the other way and underplays his achievements. So, I guess you balance each other out."

"If you hadn't shown me your badge, I'd find it hard to believe you're not just part of a normal family," Kathleen said to Sarah.

Sarah liked how that sounded, but had to say, "Oh, I'm not part of the family."

"Yes you are," both Chuck and Ellie responded. That made Sarah feel warm all over and she smiled.

"How did you get on this evening?" Kathleen asked Sarah. She was clearly not as relaxed as Sarah thought.

"First part of our plan is complete, but there's more to go," Sarah said. "You'll be here for a couple more days, at least."

"I really wanted to let my daughter know what's going on."

"Maybe I can help there," Ellie said. "You said she works at a coffee shop in town. I can go there tomorrow, my day off, and give her a message."

Chuck looked uncomfortable, and Sarah guessed why. So did his sister. Ellie glared at him. "You brought me into this. I will be fine. If anyone is watching her, I can be very unobtrusive."

Sarah winced on hearing that and Kathleen responded as she expected. "Why would they be watching her?"

"They're not likely to," Sarah replied. "But best not to draw attention to her with any unusual behavior."

That seemed to calm the woman. She went and grabbed a notepad and scribbled down what she wanted to tell her daughter. Sarah had to check it to make sure it was safe and nodded her approval. Kathleen seemed very capable of being discreet.

Ellie promised to let Chuck know when she'd delivered the note. She started to get up, but Sarah stopped her. "Ellie, can you take Chuck home? I'm staying here overnight."

Chuck knew this was the plan, but still pouted in disappointment. Sarah gave him a kiss and whispered, "I'll miss you, too."

The two siblings left.

"I'm quite jealous," Kathleen said after a while.

Sarah frowned. "Jealous?"

"I was engaged once. He used to look at me the way Chuck looks at you."

Sarah knew she had to act as if she knew nothing. "Used to? Did something happen?"

A tear trickled down her cheek. "He died when he was only nineteen." She looked away. "I've come to terms with it, but no one could replace him."

Sarah briefly imagined Chuck leaving her, dead or otherwise. She didn't want anything like that to happen. She also knew Chuck would want to reunite these two ex-lovers.

They spent the rest of the evening talking about being in love. Sarah felt so sorry for this woman and cursed Casey for the decision he made.

They eventually got ready for bed. Once Sarah lay in hers, she thought about the man she loved. She was determined now to get his dad to remove this second Intersect and then they'd leave the spy life altogether.

The next morning, the team had another briefing with Beckman. She kept a straight face as she said that their mission had come a day too late. There was an experimental drug, called Laudanol, that had been stolen from the facility, one that was designed to suppress emotion in battlefield soldiers.

Sarah wondered if it was designed with the Intersect in mind, or more particularly, Chuck, but she said nothing.

Chuck's eyes widened. "Could that help me?"

Beckman looked at him. "Are you changing your mind? Deciding you want to be a spy?"

That sent shivers up and down Sarah's spine. He looked at her and she obviously wasn't very good at hiding her reaction.

He turned back to the general. "No. I don't want to be a spy. I was thinking that I might be of more use with suppressed emotions."

The general said nothing more about that. "After this briefing, you move onto the next stage of the plan, arresting Colonel Casey, Agent Walker."

Sarah looked at her partner. "That's going to be weird."

He nodded. "But if you and Bartowski hadn't convinced me, it might've been for real."

The general advised that men would come and take him away. Chuck suggested taking Casey to the CIA location where they found the Laudanol, and the general rolled her eyes. "If we wanted to keep him somewhere that Keller and his men couldn't get to, we would choose that, but the point of this is for him being freed by them."

"But what if they could break him out of there?" Chuck insisted. "Wouldn't that be worth knowing?"

"That is not the object of this exercise," Beckman stated, and then ended the call.

Casey just shook his head at Chuck. Sarah said nothing, she was in planned mode, considering what could go wrong and how to prevent it. She had something else on her mind, too.

Before the mock arrest, Sarah turned to Chuck. "Can we quickly talk about this Laudanol?" He nodded. "Your emotions and feelings make you who you are, Chuck. I know you have strong opinions about hurting others, but with this drug, you might not stop yourself. You might kill people without thought. Do you want that to happen?" She really hoped not.

He shuddered. "I'd come to the same conclusion. No, I don't want that."

Casey frowned and said, "It's almost as if this Laudanol was created specifically for you, Bartowski."

That matched Sarah's thoughts. "The general's questioning made me think she wanted Chuck to try it."

"Agreed," Casey responded.

"Well, I don't want to now," Chuck said.

They then proceeded to prepare Casey for being taken away.

Sarah had held onto the Laudanol and made sure it was well hidden in Castle, but Keller wouldn't know that. He would know Casey didn't have it, but would know where it was. They expected his Ring team to break Casey out. He was taken to a secure lock up in LA awaiting transportation to a CIA black site off American shores.

A SWAT team was sent to search Casey's apartment as part of the cover. Sarah got there as they were doing that. She suspected they were told Casey was a traitor, keeping to the story. They were thorough, to say the least.

She managed to grab Casey's prize plant before it was pulled out of its pot. "Hey, show some respect. This guy was one of the best that we had."

"Sorry, Ma'am," he replied. "Still no sign of the Laudanol."

She looked around. Cushions were slashed. The place was a wreck. She knew this was being done for Keller's benefit, and everything would be replaced, but it still felt off.

That night, while Sarah and Kathleen ate the Chinese takeout Sarah had brought, she got a call from Chuck. "They blew a hole in the wall of Casey's cell!"

"So, I take it they have him now," she said. "They'll send him to get the Laudanol."

"So, I guess tomorrow you and Casey move onto the next part of the plan."

"Yeah," she replied.

"I'll be glad when this is all over and I have my wonderful girlfriend back in our bed."

She blushed and whispered, "Me, too."

Sarah ended the call. "We're moving into the last phase," she told Kathleen.

"Thank god!"

Sarah just hoped she and Casey could take on the ex-military Ring agents.

Early the following morning, Sarah drove to the Orange Orange, as normal. She grabbed the Laudanol case, leaving the tablet behind, and wandered casually over to the Buy More. Chuck let her in and after giving him a passionate kiss, she headed through and out the back of the store.

Casey was waiting in a large truck. She handed him the Laudanol case. He grinned as he put a tic tac in it.

"I take it you have to go to them immediately on collecting this."

"A scheduled meeting at 9am," he replied and told her where they were going. She called the general who was taking a personal interest. She would arrange for the SWAT team to arrive five minutes after the two agents.

Sarah went strapped to the undercarriage of Casey's truck, waiting while he was frisked and taken inside the cabin.

Casey lit his cigar and then discarded the matches with some folded up, the agreed way to tell me how many guards were outside around the car.

As he walked toward the cabin, she freed herself and quietly lowered to the ground.

When he'd gone in, she threw a knife into one of the men's legs, causing him to drop his gun and fall to the ground, then she shot another as he bent down to check under the car. She then rolled out, and shot two more before they knew what had happened. A fifth was too close, so she kicked him in the face and he went down. The knifed man had managed to stand, but after a few punches and kicks, he went down, too.

She then raced to the cabin. She eased the door open and saw Casey with a hand around Keller's neck. A quick twist and she heard the neck break. It was a reminder of how easy he could kill someone.

They immediately set off. Casey was keen to get away.

As he drove, she said, "Are you coming to see Kathleen now?"

"Keller said he'd sent men to collect her. They'll be at her house. We're going there."

She couldn't argue with that. Rounding up this team was important.

Five minutes later, they arrived at Kathleen's home. The door was ajar, so they drove past and then hiding in shadows, made their way to the house.

Slipping in, they heard a man's voice in one of the rooms. "You tell us where she is, or you're the one that we'll kill."

A woman's voice replied, almost defiantly, "I don't know where she is, but even if I did, I wouldn't tell you!"

'Brave,' Sarah thought.

"We're not joking," a different man said.

"I don't know who you two are, but this is pointless!" the woman said.

Sarah and Casey looked at each other. They both could tell where the voices were located. She nodded and they burst into the room and each shot one of the men.

A young dark-haired woman was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. She looked at them, initially surprised, but then tightened her lips. "I take it you're the cavalry."

Sarah rushed to untie her. "We are."

"I hope you know where the hell mom is!"

Sarah had already guessed who this was, but flinched on hearing that. She suspected Casey would be more surprised that his ex-fiancée had a daughter, but thought he'd be more surprised soon. She glanced at him. He was attending to the downed men. Neither were killed by their shots, just disarmed. He zip-tied each.

"What's your name," Sarah asked.

"I'm Alex McHugh. So, are you going to tell me where mom is?" she demanded.

Sarah heard Casey gasp behind her. He must've realized that she was his daughter. He stood and said, "I'm going to call for these two to be collected." He hastily left the room.

Sarah realized that Casey couldn't cope with this. She could understand that. She turned back to Alex. "Casey will go with these men, but I'll take you to your mom."

The two women left the house and Casey guessed what they were doing and tossed the truck keys to Sarah.

Beckman stood in front of the team. She'd flown over to LA to meet with them. That was telling in itself.

She looked at Casey. "It would've been good to have that senior Ring man alive, but I can understand why he died."

"The misunderstanding has been corrected," she continued looking at the whole team. "Colonel Casey is reinstated with no blemish on his record."

From Sarah's position, it seemed that the general's eyes then bored into Casey's. "I don't expect anything like this to happen again, Colonel."

"No, Ma'am," he replied.

"Make sure it doesn't."

"I am giving you a week off," she told him. "You have some other things to focus on." He looked like he was going to argue, but the look she gave him made him change his mind.

Later that evening, Chuck was pacing in their living room. "Casey should reconnect with Kathleen."

Sarah sat sipping some wine and said, "He said he doesn't want to. If you remember, his words were, 'I made my decision between love and love of country a long time ago. And it was the right decision for me.'"

He stopped and stared at her. "But he has a daughter!"

"Not one he knew about. He has to come to terms with that before he'll do anything."

Chuck threw his hands up in the air. "God! This spy life is such a mess!" She couldn't agree more.

She changed the subject slightly. "Chuck, we need to get your dad to remove this Intersect."

That clearly floored him. "But then I'll be no use to the team!"

That irritated her. "Chuck, you don't use the Intersect a lot of the time. You're invaluable anyway. But…" She paused. Was now the right time to say this?

He sat beside her and took a hold of her hands. "But what?"

She took a deep breath. "Maybe it's time for us both to get out of this 'spy mess,' as you called it."

His jaw dropped.

'Well, there. I've said it!' she thought.

A/N: Sarah's final words in the episode still choke me up. When asked if she was from the DC area by the taxi driver there, she said, "No, but I'm thinking of moving here." Well, not in this story!

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