Published February 9, 2020

A/N: This story follows "Chuck & Sarah vs Trust." What happened in that story? First, to help keep them straight, here's a short list of the high-level differences of the early season AUs I wrote in 2019:

- 0 Intersects, after Chuck's was suppressed: "Chuck vs His Former Handler" (post 1.04→1.13) and "Chuck & His Roommate vs the Next Mission" (2.01→ 2.10)

- 1 Intersect downloaded by Chuck after Chuck and Sarah were already married: "Chuck vs the Nemesis's Ex" (pre S1→1.01) and "The Bartowskis vs the Spy World" (more of 1.01→1.10)

- 2 Intersects with immediate Charah: "Chuck & Sarah vs the Email" (all 1.01, plus one epilogue chapter set about a month later). It has no sequel because the character dynamic is similar to the end of the next AU.

- 2 Intersects with Chuck and Sarah slowly developing trust: "Chuck & Sarah vs Trust" (1.01→1.09, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas chapters)

This story is the sequel to that last one. In that story's last chapter, Chuck and Sarah got engaged on Christmas Eve. This story starts about nine months later with Chuck and Sarah still engaged and no wedding date pressure. Ellie and Devon are first in line to the altar. Both Chuck and Sarah still have the Intersect, but… you'll see what happened to them even though there wasn't a Writers Guild of America strike, like the one between seasons 1 and 2 of Chuck.

Many of the events of Chuck-verse still happened in this AU, but the circumstances are different, because there are two human Intersects without too much WT/WT. Bryce remains as dead as he was before the last story started. (Casey's a more deadly shot). The show's events following the phone repair were preempted by the real girlfriend making sure the deli owner knew the Buy More's assistant manager was off the market. The good guys and Fulcrum still don't know about each other. That means the surveillance devices found in the Buy More during "Chuck vs the Marlin" would never have been placed by Lizzy. The Nerd Herd would have behaved better for a good assistant manager, so Casey never found out about the wedding, and Ilsa got married for her mission. Those events don't matter for this story.

Disclaimer: Nobody else owns anything here, so why would I?

Disclaimer 2: No beta. However, if you PM me corrections, I'll fix them. There's no expiration date.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Chuck jumped when the Orange Orange freezer door opened behind him. In the empty store, he was behind the counter fixing himself a frozen yogurt. He knew Sarah and Casey were coming up from the new Castle base to the store that served as a front. He had been distracted filling his treat cup and never should have turned his back towards the door from which two assassins were coming.

Fortunately, they were teammates, on his side.

He turned to say hello to the two spies. Casey's face was filled with suspicion. Sarah's had a disapproving scowl. He didn't know how they could have known. He had closed the video feed display on the register before they came up.

"Hi! I just was fixing a frozen snack."

Casey didn't buy it. "Yeah, right."

His fiancée's expression was the one that concerned him. Chuck asked her, "What is it?"

Sarah asked, "Have you had any, yet?"

"Any…? Oh, you mean this yogurt." He lifted his cup of raspberry soft-serve. "No. I was going to put chocolate sauce on it."

"Wait." She closed the distance between them and kissed him on the lips. It was a little of a sloppy kiss, not that Chuck would ever complain.

When they separated, Sarah had taken the cup out of Chuck's hands. She handed it to Casey as she licked her lips. "Yep, you still taste good."

Chuck wrinkled his brow, confused about what had just happened. Apparently, Sarah's disapproving look had nothing to do with what Chuck had been doing a few minutes before. It was about him pilfering a single dish of yogurt. It wasn't even a large.

Casey asked, "What am I supposed to do with this?" He lifted the cup he held.

Sarah went to work pouring a dish of chocolate. When she was done, she added marshmallows and crushed nuts. She gave the rocky road-esque creation to Chuck. To Casey, she said, "I don't care how you taste, so you can eat it or throw it out. I just don't want my Chuck tasking like that nasty raspberry flavor. The government needs to come up with some new flavor for the fruit mix machine. Vanilla, chocolate, and orange are all fine. The fourth flavor has to go."

Casey said, "The government will be so happy you are wasting their product. I'm sure they really care what you think."

"It doesn't sell well—not that any of it does," Sarah argued "That flavor sells worse than the others. Even a different raspberry would be better. If the Orange Orange is going to be the front for our base, even with no customers, it should at least have flavors the team can tolerate."

"It won't matter for long. Just ask your boy toy." Casey pitched the full cup and sat at the table by the front window.

The store was still open, but Sarah hadn't even bothered to turn the sign to "closed" during the video conference downstairs. It wasn't lunchtime, yet. In theory people could come buy after eating a Sbarro, Subway, or Lou's. The place had only been open a couple weeks, and word was already out to not go there. The yogurt and ice cream at other places was far better, even though you had to leave the plaza. The teenage boys hadn't found her, increasing the number of people who came by every day. As a front business, the Federal government didn't want the place to be popular so the team would have to deal with customers much. Since the store was fully owned by the government, they wouldn't have to deal with short managers like Scooter.

Chuck joined Casey at the table. Casey asked Chuck, "What do you think about Team Intersect being shut down?"

Chuck stopped his spoon of frozen goodness on the way to his mouth and feigned, "What do you mean?"

Sarah sat by him and didn't mess around. "Chuck, we know you were watching the video conference with Beckman from the register's video screen. I don't know why you weren't included, but there's no doubt you were watching from up here."

Chuck pointed his spoon at Sarah and started, "You know—" He didn't continue because Sarah ate the yogurt right off the spoon. She grinned and looked a little proud. He shouldn't have made it so easy. She could have made her own rocky road instead of eating his, but he suspected she liked taking his more. When they went out together, she'd never get fries, but would always eat at least a quarter of his.

Sarah didn't wait for Chuck to answer Casey's question, framing the issue. It was the concern she had told Chuck the night before. She said, "Graham's dead. The CIA no longer has someone supervising the Intersect Project. We're the only two in the CIA who have been read-in about the Intersect. Beckman is fully in charge of all things Intersect. However, you and I are in the CIA and not in her chain of command like Casey is. She wants human Intersect agents who follow her orders. She isn't interested in an Intersect analyst and an Intersect agent who don't have to salute. Sure, the first people who were to receive the booby-trapped Intersect were CIA, but they were first to get the CIA out of the project faster. Graham told me the intention was she'd retain control of the technology going forward so it could be uploaded into NSA agents."

Chuck didn't understand the point of these kinds of power plays. They were all supposed to be on the same side, defending the country. He was glad someone else understood the internal politics better.

Sarah continued, "The question was how would she proceed with Graham out of the picture. It's like I feared. She's going to shut down this team. We haven't flashed on something that would have us participate in a mission since before Thanksgiving. That the last piece of the new Intersect was a Trojan horse didn't change her mind. It doesn't matter that we never had the chance to flash on a chip that went directly from where it was developed in Silicon Valley to DC. Somehow, we were supposed to flash and stop things from going wrong."

Chuck said, "I still don't understand. Right now, we're the only Intersects. Wouldn't she want to keep us where we are?"

Casey said, "You haven't flashed in a while—"

Chuck protested, "I do on the intel packets I download a couple times a week." Casey was a little surprised. He didn't know the details of how Chuck had been reviewing CIA packets for his job as an analyst every week.

Sarah said, "Those were for CIA missions. They were for other team's foreign missions and didn't produce actionable intelligence that this could pursue. From Beckman's perspective, it wouldn't be giving up much."

"But they just built Castle for us," Chuck said, almost in a whine.

"If you ask me," Casey gruffly shared his opinion, "it was a big waste of taxpayer money to do all of that work, then never use it. The stock market is melting down, but it's not like we can sell this place for bail-out money. My guess is they'll re-purpose it as a West Coast tactical center."

Sarah calmly explained the potential situation. "If Team Intersect stays in Burbank, there's a chance a new CIA director would be read-in. That means Beckman would have to share control, again. Any future research would not be solely under her supervision, like it was for the first Intersect computer. Since both of the current human Intersects are CIA, her role could diminish. Graham deferred to her quite a bit, probably because Bryce was CIA. It's been a year. One could argue the only reason that Graham didn't take over completely was so he could have an agent and an analyst who worked inside US borders. Now there's a chance to change the power structure. With a new CIA supervisor, there's a strong likelihood we would be ordered somewhere else, anyway."

Sarah grabbed Chuck's hand which was still feeding serving yogurt and steered a spoonful to her mouth. She gave Chuck a peck on the lips as a thank you.

Chuck licked some yogurt off the corner of Sarah month. Nothing was really there, but he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Casey might hate displays like that, but he wasn't "public" anymore, and the NSA agent would have to get over it. Sarah had told him many times not to bother with Casey's sense of propriety.

Casey said, "If the team is disbanded, future work would remain under the general's control. She probably figures you, Chuck, will leave the CIA and Sarah will be sent somewhere on the other side of the planet."

"Who said I wouldn't retire and stay here?" Sarah protested.

Casey scoffed, "What would you do? Play June Cleaver with Chuck?"

Sarah shrugged. "I have no idea what I'd do. Chuck probably wouldn't like me wielding a big knife around him."

"No. June Cleaver. From the old TV show."

Sarah smirked. "You mean that black and white sit-com from when you were growing up about that kid, Beaver?" Sarah didn't follow most pop culture references, but she knew that class pop culture one. She hadn't seen The Twilight Zone until a few months before, but she knew what some classic shows because she lived in the US, even if she hadn't watched them. Everyone knew some pop culture references.

Sarah took Chuck's hand and squeezed three times. "I don't know what I'd do. They might still not want to send me on missions with the Intersect still in my head. I've only been a spy, but whatever I do, I'm staying with Chuck."

Chuck smiled and gave Sarah a quick peck on the lips. "I'm going wherever you tell me, but what about Casey?"

Chuck and Sarah both looked at the Marine. Sarah said, "He can follow his own girlfriend, but first he has to find one. I'm saying I am not going anywhere, though. Our apartment is the best home I've had since before I was a teenager. Back then, I had a ton of stuffed animals and wasn't interested in boys. Now, I live with the love of my life. I don't want to leave. We'll figure something out."

Casey ignored the "get a girlfriend" suggestion and said, "I'll probably be deployed in the Middle East."

"So, that's it for our team?" Chuck asked. "There's got to be something we could do. Beckman said that we don't need to start mothballing Castle until Saturday, the day after tomorrow, because she has to get some of the tear-down resources authorized, and they won't show up until Monday. She said that gives us a weekend head start."

Casey grunted and said, "I'll want to get wrapped up here before I'm shipped out with new orders."

Chuck protested, "There's no way this team stays together?"

"Not unless you flash before Monday."

This was the worst. Chuck used to cram well in college, but since then, he didn't handle pressure well. At least Sarah wanted to stay with him. He wasn't sure that would actually be the best for her, though. He didn't want to be the person that held her back.

Sarah quietly suggested, "We could pretend to flash."

Casey looked at Sarah, surprised at the suggestion. Chuck asked to make sure, "You mean fake a flash?"

"Yeah. It's not like they've ever figured out what triggers one."

"You mean I do one of these?" Chuck squinted his eyes a little and slowly shook his head in a slow way, trying to look suave.

"It doesn't look like that," Sarah said.

"Oh?" Chuck looked to Casey who shook his head to agree with Sarah. Chuck looked back to her. "What does it look like exactly?"

"Well, it kind of looks like you saw something really bright and tasted something really sour at the same time. I don't know… It would kind of be like…" Sarah crossed her eyes looking at her nose and shook her head quickly.

Chuck didn't say anything to criticize his fiancée's fake flash. Instead, he appealed to the NSA agent with a look. Casey shook his head to that one, too.

Sarah shrugged. "It's not like I ever have to fake it." Casey's groan was a little pained. Chuck didn't turn red. Despite the boost to his ego, it was more a of a purple.

Back to the topic of fake flashes, Casey said, "I don't condone any of this, but a flash has to be for real, actionable intel. It can't just be from Chuck hacking somewhere to dig up some dirt in the LA area because without a flash, we'd need a warrant. A flash gives us the right to follow a lead into the field because of the exigent need and the highly classified source."

Sarah looked down in defeat and nodded her head. Chuck didn't want to give up, but if Sarah was giving up, he knew there was not much he could do. She was always five steps ahead, seeing all of the angles.

Casey stood up and said to the two of them, "Surprising, it hasn't been too bad working with you both. I have to get back to work before my assistant manager writes me up during my last week." He stared at Chuck almost daring him to try to write him up at his cover job. The look definitely showed he really wasn't worried about Chuck. He nodded to each of them once and left.

Sarah put her palm on Chuck's cheek. A little depressed sounding, she said, "The schedule says the two creepy idiots aren't working today. Do you need to go in? I don't see any reason to keep this place open. I'd rather go home with you."

Chuck took her hand and said, "Let's go. I'll call Big Mike from the car."

A/N: In canon, it took a few months for them to come up with the Obama guava flavor. It had to replace something.

How many of you think this is it for the team with two Intersects? Time to fake a flash? It can't go as badly as it did with the wedding planner. Can it?