Posted 1 Feb 2019

A/N 1: Thanks to sage1000 for first making an observation in February 2013 that I expanded into this story, though it took me some time to publish. (Others, like giant00, came up with a similar thought independently, months later.)

A/N 2: This story is the fifth of one of my two crossover series. This series's first story was the Awesome Award-winning "Castle vs the Law of Averages." (It won the 2011 Bryce Larkin Memorial Award For Best Crossover Story.) In this series, that story was followed by the one-shots "Caskett vs Dr Morgan," post-Chuck series story "Beckett vs the Linchpin," and "Chuck vs 3XK." This series is compatible with, but not linked to, "Chuck & Sarah vs Their Next Adventure." This series is unrelated to my Castle/alternating Stargate: SG-1 & Chuck series, which starts with "This Never Happened."

This story begins during the first half of the Castle's season five two-parter, which is composed of the shows "Target" and "Hunt." Those were broadcast in early 2013. That was a while ago, so if you need details from those Castle episodes, just PM me. They took place a year after the Chuck series finale. Castle and Beckett were officially together in season 5, but as a secret couple. Only their family and a few friends/coworkers knew for certain. I have Chuck and Sarah back together for a year by then, with them fully together starting right after the beach scene in the finale. Sarah has most of her memory back, but still has occasional holes. No one remembers everything anyway, but her memory gaps are more glaring when they come up. Chuck helps her when needed, and she wouldn't rather be anywhere but with Chuck.

(The story is unrelated to the 1989 version of Brenda Starr. 'What?' you say. It comes from a couple guest appearances, which completely are unrelated to that story and which I didn't even know about and haven't seen.)

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

Disclaimer 2: No beta. Why would I sucker/obligate/subject anyone into reading this when they didn't want to? However, if you PM me corrections, I'll fix them.

"You do whatever you have to to get that man his little girl back."

Back at her desk, Kate hesitated for a minute. She made the call.

Detective Kate Beckett approached the farmhouse in her Charger. The surrounding area was a flurry of activity. Several standard-issue, federal black SUVs and local police squad cars were arranged randomly, preventing her from driving closer. She winced slightly at the coroner's vehicle. She hoped Castle hadn't seen it. Sparing a glance in his direction, she saw he was too focused on their destination.

"Remember, Alexis is not here, but we'll find your daughter." Beckett was trying to sound reassuring, hoping to discourage her partner from rushing off into the crime scene. They were well outside of New York City limits, so technically, this was the jurisdiction of the Feds first and state police second. She didn't need her and her partner to be thrown out because he couldn't remain calm.

He wasn't calm last night, when he rushed the abandoned van to see the blood smeared across the floor. Even knowing that was the driver's blood, not his daughter's or that of the other kidnap victim, Sara El-Masri, he barely held it together. That scene did motivate him to the unexpected actions that revealed this house as a lead. Beckett didn't know her writer was capable of inflicting those actions on another. She suspected if Castle was with her at the Bracken's political rally last fall, the senator would have left in worse shape than a pistol whipping scar. She didn't want to think about her partner's dark side that he used when standing up for his family.

Once she had the car in park, Castle hurried out towards the house where Alexis had been just hours before. Beckett tried her best to keep up, while still looking professional and composed. Compartmentalization was a forte of hers, but the skill was being pushed to its limits on this case. Losing his daughter could destroy Castle.

She noticed someone in the back seat of one of the SUVs, but couldn't see more because of the tinted glass. Maybe they had a suspect.

They met up with FBI Agent Harris. Castle asked about cellars and hidden rooms/ His questions were laced with desperation. Harris explained the kidnappers were sophisticated. They streamed a video of the raid across four continents to an anonymous IP address. This information wasn't helping keep Castle calm. Yesterday, when they thought only Sara was missing, no one knowing about Alexis, the FBI Agent said he wanted the kidnappees' families scared because it would keep them cooperative. Harris didn't know Castle. Her boyfriend was reckless when he was scared.

At least the tortured and dead body in the farmhouse was not Alexis. The fact that the kidnappers had turned on each other was not reassuring, though. Harris had no explanation.

"I saw you have someone in custody. Is that a suspect or a witness?" Beckett asked.

"That would be me." Beckett turned and saw Chuck Bartowski. He did get her message after all, even though she left it with a Nerd Herder at the Buy More.

Chuck's happy-go-lucky tone was completely out of place at this crime scene. She could tell the instant he saw the blood. The tall, lanky man could barely handle the sight of it.

"How did you get out? Stay right where you are," Agent Harris ordered. He moved for his gun.

"You shouldn't," came a casual sounding voice from behind Chuck. A tall blonde stepped through the door. The FBI agent didn't heed the warning and pulled his gun anyway. Chuck's head twitched, and he blinked several times.

The gun ended up across the floor.

Beckett had never seen anyone move that fast outside of a movie. This time, there were no special effects, camera angles, or editing to help. Chuck had kicked it loose that fast.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Oh so sorry. Let me get that for you." Harris watched in shock as Chuck awkwardly hurried over to the side and reached behind a chair where the gun had slid. He retrieved the weapon and handed it back to the agent. "It's been awhile since I've had a gun pointed at me. I just reacted. I'm Chuck Bartowski. You can call me Chuck. This is my wife, Sarah Walker." Chuck offered his hand to shake.

Harris took the weapon and immediately raised it back on Chuck, but not before stepping back, out of reach. Chuck held his hands up as Sarah strode over to inspect the body.

"It's ok. They're with me," Beckett said. That was enough for most of the people in the room. The crime scene techs were professionals and returned to their work. Harris, trying to salvage his pride, looked unconvinced.

Castle jumped in, "You called Carmichael Industries? How are two—"

"Computer security consultants," Sarah provided.

"—going to help with a kidnapping?" Castle finished. Beckett and Castle might know that Chuck and Sarah used to work for the CIA, but that didn't mean they were allowed to tell anyone else. She called the Buy More, which in a way was much worse and a bigger gamble. She just had the contact number from a couple years before when Chuck first gave her his card.

Chuck, still holding his hands up, resumed his babbling, "I'm really sorry. I hope your hand is ok. I could get you an aspirin or something. We're only here to help. I was trying to explain as you were preparing your tactical assault, the place is empty and the only heat signature was someone who had been dead for several hours."

The medical examiner agreed that Roger Benton had been dead for twelve to fourteen hours.

"Heat signature?" Beckett inquired.

"Right. If someone could get me my tablet, I could bring up the infrared satellite feed of this house. I moved it into orbit above New York City when I received your message, and when we picked up the location of this house from the FBI communication network—"

"You're in our network?" Harris was even more in shock.

"Well, yes. We have white hat hacking contracts with the NSA, CIA, and FBI. We're allowed."

Beckett noticed Harris started to droop his weapon, realizing that maybe Chuck wasn't a threat, even if he was still smarting from being disarmed by this apparent geek. "Get the man his tablet." One of the techs already had it ready to hand-off and quickly did so with a tiny smirk the lead agent couldn't see.

After a few seconds Chuck held out the tablet where Harris, Beckett, and Castle could all see. "See. There we all are." Chuck looked up and waved at the ceiling, even though the resolution wasn't enough to distinguish his motion. "That hot spot is my lovely wife, and there's the man who was tortured and has been dead for a while." The color of the body in the chair was not as dark as the live bodies. "I don't know when they left, but they weren't here when I positioned the satellite."

Harris was impressed enough with the tech show that he holstered his weapon, but he was still as grumpy as ever. "Detective Beckett, bringing in outside consultants is not a good idea."

Sarah responded for her. "I know the FBI has the 'experts' on kidnappings, but that's not what this is." The sarcasm around experts was clear. "This is hostage rescue, and for that you need people like us."

"Hostage rescue. What are you talking about?"

"See his fingernails." She pointed.

"Yes, he was tortured."

"No one uses that technique any more. Most people just use tweezers and pull. These were peeled off. It was taught at the Farm in the sixties. That makes the torturer about 70 years old."

"How does being a computer consultant make you an expert on torture techniques?"

"Chuck is the computer expert, my background is more esoteric."

"Torture techniques of the 1960s?"

"Have you ever been tortured Agent Harris?" The implication was clear. She had been.

Before Harris could formulate a response, Chuck jumped in, "I've traced the video feed to an address in… Sarah, I need to go."

"Chuck. Where?" He held the tablet where only Sarah could see.

"I'll go."

"No. It's a computer thing. I need to be there."

"No, Chuck. We'll both go."

"Someone has to stay here and coordinate. Too bad we didn't bring Morgan."

"I'll have him fly in."

"By then I'll be done. In and out. No problem."

"Chuck!"

The tall man immediately stopped under the fierce glare of his wife. Chuck was the tallest man in the room, with Sarah only a fraction lower in her spiked heels, but he seemed to shrink in front of her. His eyes popped into saucers. Everyone could almost hear the gulp.

After a half minute of silence, with even the techs watching, Chuck relaxed and gave her a lopsided grin. A few seconds later, "Fine! But you better be careful." Chuck must have won the stare down as indicated by Sarah's concession statement. Sarah pulled hard on Chuck's neck to what ended in a surprisingly soft kiss.

Chuck started to leave, but Agent Harris stepped in the way to cut off the exit. "Where do you think you're going?"

Chuck wasn't even looking at him. "I'm going to find Alexis Castle." He tapped and swiped away at his tablet barely looking at and stopping before the person in his way. "Sorry, but I really need to hurry. If I leave now I can catch a flight at JFK in an hour."

An hour? JFK was at least two hours away in traffic. Really three. They weren't even in the city.

Chuck held up his left hand, and Sarah flipped her keys at him, none too gently or even aimed well. For an instant, Chuck shuddered and looked like he would miss them, but at the last second his hand darted out and he grabbed them at an odd angle. It looked like he darted out his hand to exactly the right place.

Agent Harris held his hand to Chuck's chest to stop him. Didn't this guy ever learn? He'd been disarmed once already.

"Excuse me, I really, really do need to hurry. If I don't leave now, even the Porsche we rented won't get me there fast enough," Chuck tried to insist.

"Mr Carmichael—" Agent Harris's hand was by his gun. That was just being stupid. He'd never be able to draw in close quarters. Then again, he didn't know he was dealing with an ex-CIA agent.

"It's Bartowski actually, and while I appreciate what you're trying to do, if you don't let me pass, my wife will soon put you on two weeks of medical leave."

Impressively, Sarah didn't smirk. Kate didn't think she would've been able to resist if someone had just insinuated that she would put them in the hospital.

It didn't pass her notice that Sarah's right hand was at her back waistband. There wasn't the bulge of a gun. Maybe a knife?

When the FBI agent looked at the women for a second, Chuck twisted at an unexpected angle and escaped through the door. Harris was confused about what just happened, but it was too late, now.

The FBI agent tried to reassert some control, "Detective Beckett, I don't know what you were thinking bringing in consultants without at least talking to me. I told you it's important to keep control of the situation—"

Before Kate could answer for herself, Sarah said, "I'm sure she was just trying to do everything possible to bring the girls home safely. Doing everything possible means having us be here to rescue her. It was the right call. How about we go back to the precinct and sort out the jurisdiction?"

"Jurisdiction? This is a kidnapping. That's FBI jurisdiction."

"You're assuming Alexis and Sara are still in the country." Sarah started for the door.

"In the country?! We're not done here."

"I'm sure these people will contact us if they find out anything here, but I've seen all I need to see. Beckett, Castle, let's go. Chuck took my ride." The detective and her partner followed.

After a few moments, Harris gave up and went after them.