For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Also... very special thank you to everyone who has subscribed, reviewed, and read my little tale. The Chuck online community is full of truly awesome people. :) For anyone interested, a sequel will be forthcoming, Chuck versus the False Alarm. Again, many, many heartfelt thanks!

Here's a couple things you might need to know, or maybe you just forgot: Casey kills Tate, the mercenary hired by the Ring to kidnap Ellie into leveraging "Agent Carmichael" into revealing information about the Intersect. Although Casey's cover is broken with Ellie, Ellie keeps his secret. Casey debriefs with the General, getting approval for continued low-level protection for Chuck's sister.

Devon followed his nose into the warm kitchen, where Ellie was looking critically at the cooling cookies on the rack on the marble-top counter. "Honey, something smells awesome!"

She glanced up as her husband wandered in. "Peanut butter cookies."

"Yeah? What's the occasion?"

She couldn't tell him they were for her bodyguard from San Francisco trip. "Well, it's just... y'know, John's aunt passed away and I thought it would be nice."

"When you were at your conference?"

She nodded.

Devon smiled as he grabbed a glass from the cabinet. "That's what I love about you most, babe. You've got the world's biggest heart."

She smiled a little but it was short-lived as she picked up one of the cookies. "It's a new recipe; I'm worried," she admitted. She broke the cookie in half, offering one side to Devon, who was filling his glass with ice and water from the refrigerator dispenser.

She'd done her best to remember Casey's instructions for his family's award-winning secret recipe. The cookies looked golden brown, and they'd offered a pleasant crisp when she'd broken it. She just wasn't sure what they were supposed to be like, if they were supposed to be softer or harder or completely different. As she chewed thoughtfully on hers, she realized they weren't bad. But, were they great? "Well?" she asked, looking at Devon.

When he popped his half into his mouth, he couldn't prevent a happy groan. "Babe, these are superb!"

Ellie beamed, then immediately set to work plating two dozen of the confections onto a tray before securing them in plastic wrap.

"Off to do cardio," Devon called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the living room.

Ellie glanced up when she heard the familiar sound of her husband on the stationary bike. She figured she had at least twenty minutes before he'd start to think something was amiss. Grabbing the plate of cookies, she crossed the courtyard to Casey's apartment, knocking politely.

Casey was in the middle of cleaning his SIG Sauer when he heard the knock at his door. His piece was currently in pieces. As he worked to click it all back into place, he called out: "Who is it?"

"It's Ellie," came the reply.

With his gun mostly back together, he left it on the coffee table. She knew his secret, so it didn't matter much if he left it in plain view. Crossing to the door, he opened it. "Hey."

She held up the plate. "I hope you don't mind. I tried your mother's recipe. I thought you might like some."

Casey was surprised, to say the least. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had them. "Thank you," he said as he accepted them. He was genuinely touched by the gesture.

She shrugged. "I thought I'd come by and take a look at your stitches, too. Make sure you're all healed up."

"Come on in," he said, opening the door wider. Ellie followed Casey into his apartment, through the living room and into the kitchen. He set the cookies on the counter, before grabbing another medical kit from the cabinet beneath the sink. He held it out to her. "Doc."

She smiled, accepting the box. While she scrubbed up, he pulled a chair from the kitchen table closer to the sink. As she was putting on the latex gloves, Casey removed his shirt and sat down on the chair backwards.

With nimble fingers, Ellie removed the bandage that covered the stitches and looked at the healing knife wound. "It's going to leave a scar."

It wasn't his first in the line of duty. "Occupational hazard."

"You'll have to tell me if I messed up the recipe somehow. I was... not quite myself... when you gave it to me," she said as she began to remove the stitches.

"They looked perfect," he said, glancing again at the plate she'd brought.

She could hear something in his voice. A wistfulness perhaps? "Does your mother know?"

"That I revealed her recipe? No. I meant what I said about it being a closely-guarded Casey family secret."

"No, I meant... I meant about your big secret."

He hesitated. It broke his heart to lie to his mother, but it was necessary. "She thinks I'm still just a regular Marine," he told her.

"Do you ever wish you could tell her?"

"She knows I serve my country. She knows I followed in my father's footsteps. What else does she need to know?"

"The whole truth?"

"The devil's in the details for you, huh?"

She offered a halfhearted shrug.

Casey was quiet for a moment. "You're still upset about not being able to tell Devon and Chuck the whole truth, aren't you?"

"I hate keeping it from them. I hate that I want to talk to them about it, but I can't."

"Why do you want to tell them?"

"Because, it's... It's quite possibly the biggest thing that's happened to me, outside of my parents leaving when Chuck and I were small, outside of my marriage to Devon... You killed someone, to protect me. That's... huge."

Casey wondered how she'd react if he told her he'd killed people at what should've been her big wedding. "I think most people would be kind of repulsed by that, rather than impressed."

"I just... sometimes I can't process it all. I keep thinking back to the trip, and the details just... I get dizzy."

"Stop thinking about the trip."

"That's the answer?" Ellie asked.

"Put it behind you. Forget all about it." As she continued to remove stitches and grew quiet, Casey reached out, stealing a cookie from the plate. It looked like the treats he remembered his mother making. When he bit into it, it tasted like them, too, the same texture and consistency. He closed his eyes, and, for a moment, he was an eight year old boy, sitting at his mother's kitchen table, watching as she baked batch after batch of cookies for the bake sale, to raise money to send care packages to his father and others in his unit who were overseas.

"How are they?"

"Just like my mother's," he admitted in awe. "Thank you, Ellie."

"It's barely a drop in the bucket, what I owe you."

He glanced over his shoulder at her as she finished pulling out the last stitch. "The way I see it, Ellie. I may have kept you safe in San Francisco, but you're keeping me safe here, indefinitely, by keeping my secret. I owe you."

She hadn't thought about it that way, about how she was now doing the protecting. "Well," she said, pulling the gloves off. "You do pay taxes."

John Casey cracked a big, warm, beautiful Lucas-Casey-esque grin.

End.

Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this spy stuff. I think I can see some intel on the next story from here.

Chuck versus the False Alarm--Every time a GPS tracker is activated--whether intentional or not--Casey has to manually turn it off. Check the profile for link.