Chuck Vs. the Marlin

"Maya, what do you think will happen to us?"

"I don't know," Maya shrugged. She looked to the corner of their bedroom. The camera was fixed on them. Chuck had pointed it out to them weeks ago during one of his stories. "We can't hide. They see everything we do and hear everything we say."

"Not if we use our heads," Kelley replied, implying telepathy. Daddy said there were cameras everywhere.

Yeah. Every inch of the house. Have you seen any outside?

Only at school and the store Kelley thought in response.

We'd better say something out loud, so they don't think we're up to something.

"We have a substitute teacher coming in today. It was in Daddy's e-mail from school," Kelley said. Not knowing what might happen to them if their secret got out was getting to her.

Substitute teacher. Those words didn't sit right with either twin. They couldn't remember the last time they had a sub. For a couple of average seven-year-olds, that could have meant a week ago. But for two with a retention rate capable of handling the Intersect… if they couldn't remember, it had been a while. Something drastic was about to change their lives.

A "Girls, are you ready for school?" interrupted their telepathic and cryptic conversations.

Daddy's awfully calm for having found a bug Casey and Sarah didn't plant in the store yesterday Maya thought.

Maya? Will we go to the same place? I don't wanna be away from you and Daddy.

All I know is I don't want to miss Uncle Awesome and Aunt Ellie's engagement party.

Kelley cocked her head to the side in agreement. Ellie had yet to find out Devon planned to propose to her.

~***~***~

"The bug Chuck found is a GLG-20, one of the most advanced counter-espionage listening devices in the CIA arsenal," Beckman confirmed over the video conference.

"The GLG-20 is a low-power transmitter. In order to avoid detection, it has a maximum range of about twenty yards," Graham added.

"Which means there's probably a receiver hidden somewhere inside the Buy More," Beckman continued.

Time went on as the agents discussed the possible futures of Chuck and the twins.

"You have forty-eight hours. If you cannot identify the enemy operative in that time, we will have no choice but to relocate the assets to a secure government holding facility," Beckman said. It was something she wanted all along, but at the same time, she didn't. This wasn't something her government usually did to an innocent person.

Unbeknownst to the spies, the twins had spent many hours practicing with the Intersect, unlocking doors only its creator knew existed. They accessed the feed toward the end of the call.

"The Bartowski's lives as civilians may be coming to an end. For their own safety, the family may never see them again," Graham said.

This was what prompted their fears of being separated.

~***~***~

Kelley and Maya looked around in awe. Ever since Chuck accidentally told his handlers that the twins were Intersects, they were either driven to school by Chuck or an agent who had no idea why these kids were considered high value assets to the government.

It was the agent's turn to drive them, but Chuck wanted his time with them. He put up as much of a fight as his untrained limbs and words allowed against a skilled operative. Eventually, he won the battle since the agent was ordered by Casey to stand down.

"Take them to school and go to work. I'll be there when I can. There's something I need to take care of first."

That was what happened. But right after Chuck left school property, the agent assigned to the girls led them out of the building. Maya took Kelley's hand. Neither knew what was happening. Or where they were going.

~***~***~

They knew they were near the Buy More, but they entered a place that wasn't there before. Most people would have liked or loved this Orange Orange place. Not the twins. They preferred real ice cream to frozen yogurt.

"Assets are in the building. Open Castle," their handler said into an earpiece.

The sound of airlocks releasing came from a door in the freezer. A retinal scanner came out of the wall. First the agent, then the twins' eyes were scanned.

The twins flashed at the sight of the keypad. The pass code came to their attention. Kelley started to enter it with her mind until Maya stopped her and cleared it so that the handler didn't know what happened.

Their handler led the way down a set of stairs. Everything they saw seemed futuristic.

"Whoa… what is this place?" Maya asked. She stayed with their handler while Kelley opted to explore a cave that was as long as the mall.

There were armories, containment cells, workout areas, labs… everything that would make a mischievous child feel like they were in a candy shop. The one room Kelley missed was one specifically designed for them. A room they could sleep in and play in. And if the extraction didn't happen, it would be a place Casey and Sarah could place them during missions.

"This is Castle… and this," the agent said as she entered another passcode on a digital panel in the wall. "This section was designed for you."

"Are we leaving?" Maya asked since Kelley had slipped away. She noticed the hesitant glance the agent had given her. "You don't have to lie to us. We figured something was happening because a substitute teacher hasn't been needed at school in over a year… So, where are we going?"

"An undisclosed location…"

"Undisclosed?" Kelley asked as she rounded the corner to their room in Castle.

"Somewhere no one will be able to find you to keep you safe."

I wonder if Daddy's going to the same one Maya thought.

Probably not. Three Intersects. They'll want to keep us separated in case anything happens to one of us.

If one wasn't thinking logically, the other was. Most of the time.

They didn't notice when their handler left the room. They were both excited and scared. Scared because they didn't know where they were going. Excited because of all the cool toys Beckman and Graham got for them to play with.

~***~***~

Chuck made sure the girls were in their classroom and signed in before heading to work. He had no idea they were going to be whisked away the moment he left campus. Something else he didn't expect was to find the store completely empty save for things that were cemented to the floors. Even his locker had been emptied.

A blown cover hadn't occurred to him until Casey called him down to a warehouse. And even then, it had to be spelled out for him.

"We have to find that transmitter…"

"That's what we're trying to do, Chuck," Sarah explained.

"You don't understand. My kids are on that transmitter. If we can find the Marlin, we can find the transmitter and everything will be back to whatever normal is with the Intersect," Chuck reasoned. "I have to call the school to see if the twins are safe."

As far as Chuck was concerned, his job at the warehouse was done. He asked for Ellie's ring but hadn't come up in their inventory.

"What do you mean no ring came up in your inventory? You guys robbed the Buy More, didn't you? What happened to Awesome's great-grandmother's ring?"

"We kind of have some bigger- picture concerns right now."

"What could possibly be bigger than me ruining the chances of my sister getting married?"

"The receiver may contain information indicating that you're the Intersect," Sarah had a hard time figuring out a gentle way to say what was coming.

"Say it. Say what you're not saying," Chuck said. He had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going.

"If we don't locate the receiver in the next 24 hours..." she began.

"The three of you will be stored in an underground bunker for so long you'll forget what fresh air smells like," Casey finished for her.

"What else are you not saying?" Chuck said through grit teeth.

"Kelley and Maya are already on their way to their extraction point."

"Where is that?" he asked. Had his handlers been normal people, not spies, he would have tried a physical confrontation. But one look at both agents said he wasn't going to get an answer.

~***~***~

The twins were playing with what was available to them in their Castle room. Something still wasn't sitting right with them. So, they used the Intersect to tap into the Buy More feed.

That guy is a CIA agent.

Codename: Longshore

Follow Daddy. He found the mole.

Why didn't he flash on the sight of Longshore? We did.

Their feed followed Chuck as if seeing through his eyes.

Sarah's in the freezer!

Had the situation not been so dire, they would have found Chuck's inability to turn the safety off on Sarah's gun comical.

"Sarah!" Chuck exclaimed. "We can't go. Don't let them take us away." He said all this while Longshore aimed a gun on him, handcuffing him on their way out to a car.

Maya snapped out of their Intersect feed and raced to the digital panel that locked them in the playroom. The Intersect input the numbers that would unlock the door.

~***~***~

Chuck looked into what he could see of the review mirror. Maya came running out of the new shop that was going into the mall.

That's where their extraction point is?

He grabbed the handle of his door, but it was as if the child lock was turned on, not to mention that handcuffs around his wrists. Part of the reason he was wearing them was to sell a cover with Big Mike who needed to see someone arrested.

He begged for Longshore, or the detective as he knew the man to be at the time, to turn around. That his kids were back there. Trying to unbuckle himself so he could turn the table of power was proving next to impossible in his current predicament.

"They'll be fine. They're another agent's responsibility," Longshore commented.

Chuck managed to go through the shootout between Sarah and the mole without either side mentioning the mini Bartowski's. To both Chuck and Sarah, that meant the mole didn't know about them. While unlikely, it was possible.

The Intersects' extractions were cancelled upon learning of the mole's arrest. The twins were brought out of Castle by Casey and Sarah who had yet to tell Chuck of a base that was being built should the Intersect remain in their human hosts.

Kelley and Maya had yet another secret to keep, only this time, it was from their father. Sarah and Casey had told them they couldn't discuss Castle, even amongst themselves.

~***~***~

Once he had put them in their beds using the Morgan door, he returned to the building which served as his extraction point. He was determined to find Ellie's engagement ring, no matter what it might have been covered in.

This moment was almost as important to him as his kids were. That's why he and Sarah searched the dumpster she and the mole fell into until they found the ring Devon was going to give Ellie. A ring his grandmother had given him before she passed.

"We can only keep them here for so long. You realize that don't you?" Casey said to Sarah as they watch Devon, Ellie and Chuck interact through the window. The twins came running in to join now that they'd had a full night's rest and a day to process that they almost had to leave what was home.