halfamoon prompts
for 
copracat
prompt: Sarah Walker, feeling nearly as faded as my jeans
I do worry that Chuck is suffering from increasing angst syndrome: isn't there a TV trope about this?
There was a point in World War II where the average service life of a British pilot was measured in weeks. The pilots went up, often undertrained, exhausted, desperate to protect everything they knew and loved. They got into their little tin-can planes and they flew and they fought. And they died, because commitment isn’t everything.
The expected status for an agent who’s been on as many missions as Chuck has been is: dead.
When she said as much to Casey, he just snorted and came back with something about how spy years were like dog years. Only with more guns.
Casey has his own methods of coping. They’re not Sarah’s.
For a little while she thought that Chuck might be her way out. But then it turned out that she was his way in. And it’s not that she doesn’t understand the impulse. She knows it’s important work they do, that their compromises save lives, that everything they give up has a good chance of preserving the blissful serenity of others’ existences.
Mostly that’s enough. But how many times can anyone be asked, not just to throw herself into the air, hoping the welds will hold, but to send someone else out into that constant barrage?
She watches Chuck slip into the habits of thought that used to be hers. She watches him lie, and the one that hurts her the most is the one he tells himself: This is all okay. I’m not losing anything that makes a difference.
Sarah’s no saint. If she were, she’d most likely suborn Casey into grabbing Chuck and stashing him on some desert island, out of touch until no agency would trust any of them ever again. It would mean the sacrifice of her life, a black prison somewhere. She’d have risked it for Chuck before. But now, with Chuck hardening before her eyes, she can’t do anything but watch. She’s not even sure that the Chuck she met is still there, like the new Intersect is piece by piece writing over the parts of his brain that made him the man she-
Chuck isn’t her way out.
She’s staying, because pilots can’t go up alone, and because she’s beginning to realize that she needs to make her own way out. It’s not just a matter of walking away-that’s as dangerous as any ten missions. She’s going to have to know who Sarah Walker is and who she wants to be. And even though a lot of days that seems as far off as defeating the Ring, as unlikely as surviving a hundred missions, she makes herself believe that it will happen.
After all, it’s not like she has an alternative.
comments on DW
copracat
prompt: Sarah Walker, feeling nearly as faded as my jeans
I do worry that Chuck is suffering from increasing angst syndrome: isn't there a TV trope about this?
There was a point in World War II where the average service life of a British pilot was measured in weeks. The pilots went up, often undertrained, exhausted, desperate to protect everything they knew and loved. They got into their little tin-can planes and they flew and they fought. And they died, because commitment isn’t everything.
The expected status for an agent who’s been on as many missions as Chuck has been is: dead.
When she said as much to Casey, he just snorted and came back with something about how spy years were like dog years. Only with more guns.
Casey has his own methods of coping. They’re not Sarah’s.
For a little while she thought that Chuck might be her way out. But then it turned out that she was his way in. And it’s not that she doesn’t understand the impulse. She knows it’s important work they do, that their compromises save lives, that everything they give up has a good chance of preserving the blissful serenity of others’ existences.
Mostly that’s enough. But how many times can anyone be asked, not just to throw herself into the air, hoping the welds will hold, but to send someone else out into that constant barrage?
She watches Chuck slip into the habits of thought that used to be hers. She watches him lie, and the one that hurts her the most is the one he tells himself: This is all okay. I’m not losing anything that makes a difference.
Sarah’s no saint. If she were, she’d most likely suborn Casey into grabbing Chuck and stashing him on some desert island, out of touch until no agency would trust any of them ever again. It would mean the sacrifice of her life, a black prison somewhere. She’d have risked it for Chuck before. But now, with Chuck hardening before her eyes, she can’t do anything but watch. She’s not even sure that the Chuck she met is still there, like the new Intersect is piece by piece writing over the parts of his brain that made him the man she-
Chuck isn’t her way out.
She’s staying, because pilots can’t go up alone, and because she’s beginning to realize that she needs to make her own way out. It’s not just a matter of walking away-that’s as dangerous as any ten missions. She’s going to have to know who Sarah Walker is and who she wants to be. And even though a lot of days that seems as far off as defeating the Ring, as unlikely as surviving a hundred missions, she makes herself believe that it will happen.
After all, it’s not like she has an alternative.
comments on DW