Disclaimer—Recognizable characters belong to Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz. No copyright infringement intended. Any similarity to events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Author's Notes—Many thanks to the amazingly "awesome" Brandywine00 for the beta, encouragement, and general Casey-drooling. And to wonderful Chuck online community for following me along a wild ride with Chuck versus the Paranoia. Here's another mission-fic. Hope y'all enjoy it. :)

Spoilers—General knowledge through Season 3. Specifics in Chuck versus Operation Awesome. AU, since Ellie knows Casey's NSA.

Chuck versus the False Alarm—Every time a GPS tracker is activated--whether intentional or not--Casey has to manually turn it off. Sequel to Chuck versus the Paranoia.

He crept through the window, his combat boots surprisingly silent as he crossed the floor. The form on the bed snored evenly, deeply, completely oblivious to the armed man methodically checking the room.

Satisfied that nothing would interrupt him, he slid the black SIG Sauer into the back waistband of his blue jeans. With a quiet sigh, he lifted the watch with its red blinking light from the nightstand. For the life of him, he wanted to throw it onto the ground and stomp it into submission. Unfortunately, it had been funded with taxpayer dollars and his patriot heart just couldn't willingly destroy it.

He removed a small hand-held device from his jeans pocket, aimed it at the watch and pressed a button, stopping the infernal alarm.

John Casey eased it back on the nightstand. He looked at the Intersect, Chuck Bartowski, who slept soundly. He wasn't sure if that was something he should be envious of or if he needed to pummel the kid for it.

As it was, he was tired, cranky, and had a long day of protecting the nation ahead of him. Shaking his head, he escaped through the same window he'd entered, moving towards his apartment in the dawning light.

His calm was short-lived as the crunch of approaching footsteps reached his ears. He fell into a defensive posture immediately, his right hand at the ready to pull his weapon.

The figure that rounded the corner wore sneakers and scrubs, with her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her purse slung over her shoulder. She was fumbling through the various keys, trying to find the one that would unlock her apartment.

He eased slightly at the sight of Chuck's sister. "Ellie."

She looked up. "John."

He couldn't help but notice the dark circles under her eyes, the way exhaustion seemed to permeate through her very soul, from her stooping shoulders to her lowered chin. All her weight shifted from one foot to the other.

"Didn't figure you'd be up this early," she said, abandoning her key search.

"Security never sleeps."

She offered him a slight smile. "Must get old."

This particular night had been excruciating, given that Chuck's watch had been issuing false alarms for the past several hours. But, she didn't need to know any of the details. "It's all right."

"I know it gets old," she said softly, distantly.

He tilted his head to one side curiously. "Are you okay, Ellie?"

There was a softness to his voice, a genuine concern. Why didn't Devon ask questions like that? "Can I ask you something?"

"Depends," he said, taking a step towards her. "Are you gonna answer my question?"

She bit her lower lip briefly. "Who protects you?" Off his confused expression, she took another step closer to him. Her voice was lower when she spoke again. "I mean, I know who you are, what you are. You're a protector. Like me. I always tried to look after Chuck, to make sure he grew up at least somewhat normally. To look out for his best interests, over my own. When you need five minutes, just to regroup, to be vulnerable... Who looks after you?"

Casey hesitated. "You want to come inside for a minute? We'll get some coffee?"

She nodded.

While he wasn't keen on having this conversation at all, he certainly didn't want to discuss it in the public courtyard area of the apartment complex. And, by the time they entered his apartment, by the time he made coffee, he would've sufficiently bought himself a few minutes to get his head together to respond to her.

He finished unlocking his apartment, welcoming her inside. "Have a seat," he said, nodding towards the couch in the living room. He moved towards the kitchen, his mind reeling as he worked on brewing a fresh pot.

Ellie didn't sit, not at first. She looked at the airplanes on the low shelf along the wall beneath his television. She looked at the framed tri-folded flag, assuming that must've been the flag that had brought his father home, to his final resting place.

She spotted the blanket haphazardly spread on the couch, the pillows piled up at one end. He'd been sleeping there? Wordlessly, she redistributed the still-warm pillows on both sides and folded the blanket, draping it over the back. She let her fingers wander over the soft quilting. Her guess was that it had been hand-done. Maybe by his mother or a grandmother?

Fighting a sigh, she eased onto the couch, setting her purse and keys on the floor at her feet. She looked to the kitchen, watching as Casey busied himself with process of coffee making. He put the coffee grounds and filters back away. He grabbed two coffee mugs from the tree. From the refrigerator, he pulled a small container of cream.

She watched as he rested his fists on the counter, leaning forward slightly, watching his coffee pot. It was then that she realized there was a subtle bulge at the small of his back, beneath his tee shirt.

Security never sleeps.

"I'm okay, by the way," she said.

He turned, glancing back at her. "You sure?"

She nodded. "I just keep thinking."

"About what?" he asked.

"About a lot of things," she admitted. "About San Francisco. About Devon. About life in general."

Casey nodded slowly. "What about them?"

"Well, I don't want to tell Devon about what happened any more."

While that was good for the overall situation, he wasn't entirely sure it was good for her personal situation. "Why's that?" he asked as the thick, dark brew finished percolating. He filled both mugs, adding cream to hers, before joining her in the living room.

"Because, I don't know about Devon anymore."

Casey held the mug out to her, which she took, wrapping both hands around it. Why on earth was she talking to him about this? To prevent any considerations on anyone's part that there might be improprieties going on, he opened the living room's curtains, letting the early morning sunshine into the room. "What's not to know?" he asked, taking a seat on an arm chair, across the living room from her.

She blew across the top of the steaming mug. "He's been different, John. He's saying things, doing things... He's never been a particularly good liar, which I've always found comforting. But, lately, he keeps lying. He keeps trying to put things past me."

"Are you sure it's not just that you're under stress from San Francisco?" he asked as casually as he could.

"I've thought that, but..." She shook her head. "Do you remember, gosh, seems like ages ago now, when Devon and I, and Chuck and Sarah, went to that consulate party?"

Casey managed a grunt. How could he forget? Getting shot, getting his blood stolen from him... "Yeah."

"And then he went missing. And I went, I'll admit, kinda crazy."

Casey nodded.

"Well, the story he came up with, the story Chuck helped him come up with... I realize now that there's just no way it was possible."

"What'd they say?" he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

She winced. "That you'd gotten arrested for public intoxication and indecent exposure."

He choked, burning the roof of his mouth. He set his coffee cup on the table between them. Once he recovered, his blue eyes met hers. "They said that, huh?"

"Yeah," she said quietly. "Knowing what I know about you now... John, there's no way. That'd be 'conduct unbecoming' or something, wouldn't it?"

"To say the least," he acknowledged.

"So, it begs the question... what are they hiding? Why would Chuck defend Devon? I mean, I understand that there's a 'bro-code' or whatever, but when do I get to be protected? When does someone stand up for me?"

If only you knew, he thought.

She sighed, calming down slightly. "Which, was why I asked, who protects you."

Casey rested his elbows on his knees. "Well, I have a partner who watches my back," he admitted.

"Is that too much to ask for? For me, I mean. I just want someone who's honest with me. And the fact that the person most honest with me in this whole building is you, I mean, that's kinda telling, don't you think?"

He offered a cautious half-smile. "I'm not sure I'd go that far."

She scrunched up her nose. "Well, Morgan does live here now, too, doesn't he?"

"Ellie, have you told Devon that you feel this way?"

She shook her head.

"Maybe you should."

"Do you think it's unreasonable?"

"I'm... I'll be honest. I'm not sure why you're coming to me with relationship questions. I'm pretty much, y'know, set in my bachelor ways..."

"You're in a relationship," she said. "With your country, with your job. You eat, sleep and breathe it. I know. In four days spent up the coast with you, I know that. And you told me you'd been in this job for years." She gave a slight shrug. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, John, you're the only person I know who's been in a relationship that's lasted a significant amount of time."

"I'm not sure I'd call it that. I think I'd call it following orders." She had such a visceral reaction to his last sentence, he wasn't sure what happened. The look on her face was like she'd been slapped. "Ellie?" he asked, alarmed.

"Maybe I am talking to the wrong person."

"What did I say?" Mentally, he replayed the last bit of their conversation. He didn't think he'd said anything untoward, anything that would've intentionally upset her.

She shook her head, putting her mug on the table and getting to her feet. "It's not something you said. It's something Devon said."

Casey stood as well, holding a hand out, to keep her from leaving just yet. "What did he tell you?"

She retrieved her belongings, her face contorting at the memory. "That I needed to 'obey' him. Because that was part of our vows."

He frowned. "That doesn't really sound like Devon."

"It doesn't, does it? It was a very un-awesome thing to say. Between that, lying to me about you, about where he was..."

He rubbed at the back of his neck. Devon had lied to her because he'd been kidnapped by the Ring. The rest of the behavior, though, seemed uncharacteristic. "Maybe it's not as bad as you think."

"I dunno anymore," she admitted. "All I know is that I'm tired."

"You did just work all night. Maybe things will look better after you've slept."

She nodded, but she just wasn't sure. "Thanks, John."

"I didn't do anything."

She looked up at him. "You listened."

He listened, sure, but he continued to perpetuate the lies, the lies she clearly knew were lingering, hovering over the Bartowski extended family like a thick, dark cloud. While he was better at covering his tracks than Devon and Chuck, he was hurting her the same way they were. "Sleep well, Ellie," he said.

She didn't look away, continuing to search his blue eyes. It was like she saw the walls come up, brick by brick. He hid the truth, whatever it was, in a fortress so safe no one would find it. "See you later, John."

He nodded, walking her to his front door.

She emerged into the courtyard, crossing towards her apartment. When she reached the fountain in the center, she looked back, to see him still framed in the open door, watching her. She smiled a little, tiredly, before continuing on.

Casey could feel a headache building. This day was going to be the perfect follow-up to his night.

As he disembarked from his flight, he kept his carry-on close. His green eyes warily glanced around. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd been told to do this particular task. It wasn't within the normal scope of his duties.

But, when he was told to do something, he did it.

His job was his livelihood.

He just hated the fact that he'd had to fly to L.A. unprotected. Sure, security was a pain in the ass, but that didn't necessarily mean he was safe. He wished he could've smuggled a gun on board. A pocket knife. Something. He didn't like feeling exposed.

Making his way to the luggage return, he waited impatiently for his suitcase. He wanted to get into his rental car and leave. As the pieces slowly started coming off the conveyor belt, he moved closer, looking for his black Samsonite with the brown leather tag. It would be coming off at any moment. Any time now. The suitcases started tumbling faster, in larger clumps. He still didn't see his, however.

Oh, that would be perfect, just his luck, if his luggage had somehow not made it to Los Angeles.

In his excitement over his luggage, he failed to notice someone coming up behind him, invading his space, until he heard a sneering voice in his ear: "Welcome to L.A., Mr. Jennings."

Chuck breezed into the Buy More in his Nerd Herd attire. The moment he stepped through the open doors, the security alarms began to blare. He stopped immediately. No one had been leaving. He was coming in. How could he set off the alarms just walking in the door?

"Bartowski!" thundered the booming voice of manager Big Mike.

"I didn't do it," Chuck said.

"Can you fix it?"

"Well, I guess I can try," he said. "How long has it been going off?"

Chuck's best friend and roommate, Morgan Grimes, approached with a pair of earplugs. "You'll need these," he said, holding them out to Chuck, who graciously accepted them.

"I'm guessing all morning then, huh?"

"Doesn't seem to matter if people are coming in, going out, or there's nobody there at all," Big Mike said, huffing a sigh.

"Has somebody been messing with it?" Chuck asked.

Lester Patel, a fellow Nerd Herder, leaned against one of the checkout counters. "I'm thinking it's solar flares combined with the hole in the ozone layer. Global warming."

Lester's cohort in crime, Jeff Barnes, shook his head. "My money's on gremlins."

"No. No way, guys. No more conspiracy theories," Morgan said, vividly remembering a hellish weekend not that long ago. He shooed them back towards the Nerd Herd desk. "Back to work, huh? Get moving."

Sarah Walker glanced up as she heard familiar heavy footfalls on the stairwell. Her partner looked particularly thrilled this morning. "Hey, Casey."

He merely grunted.

She assumed everything was normal, because that was pretty much on par for morning rapport with her partner. "So, nothing really new. Been reviewing the intel around L.A. CIA says a weapons designer is pulling through town, but the team tasked to apprehending him will be at his final destination. The Ring cells continue to be quiet, which is troubling, to say the least."

"What do we know about the GPS emergency beacon system?" he asked as he tossed his black backpack on the conference table.

She looked up. "From the watches?"

Casey nodded.

"It works. What else do we need to know?"

"It didn't work last night. Bartowski's watch went off every thirty minutes. Didn't get a damned bit of sleep."

Sarah frowned. "Well, I'll get Chuck to look at it when he comes in. You want to head back home?"

He shook his head. "We got bigger problems."

"Oh?"

"Ellie and Devon are having issues."

Sarah arched an eyebrow. "I thought you were only listening in on Chuck's apartment."

He bristled at the implication that he was doing something improperly. "I am. But I wound up inviting Ellie in for coffee this morning and got an earful of issues after spending all night in the wild goose chase with Chuck's watch."

Her eyebrows did more than arch; they drifted clear up her forehead. "You and Ellie had... coffee...?"

He was starting to reevaluate whether or not his partner had his back like he thought. He went on the defensive. "She started talking about my job, my real job, in the courtyard. I wasn't about to carry on that conversation there."

"How does someone with marital problems affect us, exactly?" Sarah asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"When Devon was taken by the Ring, he made up some bogus story--about me--to cover for it. Ellie believed it until my cover was blown. Now, given the volatile nature of the Intersect, this has the potential to rock the boat enough that Chuck's internal programming goes haywire, which is not something we can afford with the Ring being suspiciously quiet."

"You think they're planning something?"

"I never think they aren't."

"What do we do about Devon and Ellie?"

"I don't know," Casey admitted with a sigh.

Sarah was quiet for a moment. "Maybe we have a sit-down with Devon and Chuck? Let them know that Ellie's suspicious about them? Tell them to step up their game?"

"Chuck's becoming a better spy. But, can we teach Woodcomb to be 'awesome'?"

"It's worth a shot," Sarah said, moving towards one of the computers. She punched a few keys, bringing up Devon's work schedule for the week. "Looks like he's got open-heart surgery all afternoon. Maybe we can meet with them after."

Casey nodded. "In the meantime... Get Chuck down here to work on the damned GPS emergency system."

Sarah hit a few more keystrokes. "He's up at the Buy More."

He took a slow breath. Of all the places he wanted to be that morning, retail hell wasn't one of them. Sneering, he charged back up the stairs. He'd go get the geek himself.

Chuck tinkered with the security sensors. While the earplugs were helpful, they still weren't able to prevent the pulsing pain building in his temples. It made him anxious as he poked around the open access panel. As he eased tweezers towards a green wire, the entire setup shook and the sound, mercifully, stopped.

He bounced up, thrilled that the prospect of just threatening the machine had done wonders. It had even trembled in fear at the unstoppable force that was Chuck Bartowski, Nerd Herd Supervisor, also known as the super spy Charles Carmichael. His face fell slightly when he saw Casey standing in the middle of the open door. "You hit it, didn't you? Just slapped it around a little. Y'know, I really don't think that's the best way to go about fixing things--"

"You up for some yogurt?"

"John Casey! I like that. Showin' it who's boss. Nice work, son," Big Mike said with an appreciative nod.

Casey merely grunted.

"Taking the big hero for a cup of fro-yo, Big Mike, be right back," Chuck said, removing the earplugs.

"Don't wander far," Big Mike called before disappearing into his office.

Chuck easily kept up with Casey's long strides across the parking lot towards the Orange Orange. "Seriously, Casey, do you ever do anything with finesse? Sometimes it doesn't take a heavy hand to accomplish something."

"How do you think you're still alive?" Casey said, looking over at the Intersect.

"Okay, who spit in your Wheaties this morning? Was it Morgan? 'Cause, you know, you really should learn to lock up your breakfast cereals when the bearded one is hungry..."

Casey narrowed his eyes at his charge. "We've got to up your training."

"C'mon. How am I supposed to keep an eye on Morgan when I'm supposed to be helping save the world on a daily basis?" he asked as Casey opened the door to the empty yogurt shop.

"I'm not talking about your roommate, Bartowski. I'm talking about you," Casey said, stopping once they were safely alone inside the dining room of the shop.

"What did I do?" Chuck asked, thoroughly lost.

"You slept through a potential danger a dozen times in the night."

"And what danger was that?"

"A highly-trained, heavily-armed killer broke into your room not once. Twelve times."

Chuck's eyes grew large. "What! Casey! Why didn't you stop him? Clearly, there were multiple opportunities for you to use your gun!"

"Because, idiot, it was me."

Chuck stood there, momentarily dumbfounded.

Casey rolled his eyes, moving towards the back room of the Orange Orange, to head down to the Castle.

Speedily, Chuck caught up to him. He did manage to think better of it before grabbing a hold of the NSA agent's arm, however. "What the hell were you doing breaking into my room?"

"Seems we've got a short somewhere in the emergency tracking system. Your watch decided you were in trouble while you were snoring. Buy More losing a little merchandise won't do much harm in the long run. My lack of sleep, however, could cause you to be in a world of pain. So, fix this, Bartowski."

Chuck sighed heavily, following Casey down the metal stairs into the CIA-funded base. The only remote ray of sunshine in Chuck's now dim morning was seated at the computer, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing the powder blue Orange Orange sweatshirt and capri pants. He smiled, ever so slightly, at Sarah.

Stay Tuned...

Lines from the next installment:

Devon stood, taking a slow breath. "What would you do? About Ellie? I'm sure you're aware of the entire situation. You never seem to be without all the information... I'm in real trouble here."

Who had he become, Dear Abby? "For starters, you aren't bleeding. Or on fire. You're in real personal trouble. And I'm not exactly qualified to handle that; that's why I sent you to work with Walker."

"That's how I got in this new mess, Casey. I missed dinner with the missus. She didn't take too kindly to that."

Casey looked longingly at his apartment door then back at Devon. "Ellie is..." How could he describe her? "Ellie's a creature of habit. She likes things a certain way. When things don't turn out the way she expects, she has a tendency to react on a very emotional, very personal level. She's also a smart lady. So your being devious is upsetting to her."

"How is protecting Chuck 'devious'?" he asked, offended.

"You're lying to her. And she knows it. What would you call that?"