MHA #6, Sunday Afternoon
Sarah Walker wasn't a good cook, but she was perfectly capable of making herself a grilled cheese sandwich to take to the pool on a sunny Sunday afternoon. As she pressed the sandwich down into the grill to encourage the cheese to melt, she found her mind wandering back to one of her first days in L.A., more than a year ago. Before she really knew Chuck, long before she got sent off to Maryland.
Sarah sat in the front seat of a rented car in a Buy More parking lot, thinking about the blister forming on the heel of one foot because if she thought about anything else from the last few days, she was going to start crying. It was bad enough for your partner to go rogue, worse yet for him to steal sensitive data. But Bryce had been a partner in more senses than one, and Bryce was dead, and .... well. Sarah was good at shutting off her feelings, but it was taking more effort than usual for her to stay on-mission.
She drew a deep breath, focused on what her supervisor, Director Graham, was telling her. He was ordering her to go back to D.C. and let Major John Casey from the NSA handle the recovery of the Intersect.
"Casey?" Sarah scoffed. "He's a burnout."
"He's a killer," Graham put in. "But he's who we want to handle the assignment, Walker."
"Give me twelve more hours," Sarah requested, about to end the connection.
And then Graham did the one thing he never did and addressed her by her birth name. Shock at that little bit of dirty pool kept Sarah on the line. In a kinder tone verging on the paternal, he added, "We know this has been personally difficult for you. Go back to your hotel, get some sleep, we'll have a new partner and a new mission for you tomorrow."
Sarah glanced to the Buy More entrance and noticed Major Casey was already on his way in. All of a sudden, some sleep sounded like the best idea in the world. "All right," she said. "But if anything goes wrong with Casey's take on things, I want back in."
"Of course," Graham lied smoothly, and Sarah let herself be lulled by the lie.
It was no surprise the next morning to find the carjacking death of a Buy More employee named Bartowski covered deep in the Local section of the L.A. Times. Sarah took just a minute to feel regret before she folded the paper and boarded her flight back to D.C.
Sarah's next assignment was to help put together what Bryce had destroyed. With her new (older, married) partner, Agent Sam Beckett, she traveled the globe locating sensitive information -- blueprints from a factory in Prague, munitions plans from a banana plant in Ecuador, intel on secret agents from what seemed like every government in the world. Most of the missions were things she could do in her sleep, but it was good to keep busy. She got in, did what she had to do, and got out.
"You're a machine, Walker," Beckett told her in a tone of wonder after she took out a roomful of Chinese agents who disapproved of her plans to recover information about American war planes.
"I do what I can," Sarah said absently, wiping a trickle of blood off her forehead. "Help me up."
And the next day, they were in Peru and Sarah got to find out that you really could kill a man with a spoon.
And so on. Different names, different towns, the cover changed but Sarah was still the same inside. Sometimes, polishing her gun, she would let herself think about what she was running from and if she would ever want to (have to?) stop, but she never let those moments of reflection soften her. She couldn't. She got soft, she got dead, that was how it was.
Until one day, they got word from Langley that Bryce had been recovered alive.
And then things really got interesting.
Sarah glanced down at her sandwich, shaking off whatever that had been. "At least I didn't burn it too bad."
[OOC: IAWL, baby. Some dialogue from Chuck vs. the Pilot.]
Sarah sat in the front seat of a rented car in a Buy More parking lot, thinking about the blister forming on the heel of one foot because if she thought about anything else from the last few days, she was going to start crying. It was bad enough for your partner to go rogue, worse yet for him to steal sensitive data. But Bryce had been a partner in more senses than one, and Bryce was dead, and .... well. Sarah was good at shutting off her feelings, but it was taking more effort than usual for her to stay on-mission.
She drew a deep breath, focused on what her supervisor, Director Graham, was telling her. He was ordering her to go back to D.C. and let Major John Casey from the NSA handle the recovery of the Intersect.
"Casey?" Sarah scoffed. "He's a burnout."
"He's a killer," Graham put in. "But he's who we want to handle the assignment, Walker."
"Give me twelve more hours," Sarah requested, about to end the connection.
And then Graham did the one thing he never did and addressed her by her birth name. Shock at that little bit of dirty pool kept Sarah on the line. In a kinder tone verging on the paternal, he added, "We know this has been personally difficult for you. Go back to your hotel, get some sleep, we'll have a new partner and a new mission for you tomorrow."
Sarah glanced to the Buy More entrance and noticed Major Casey was already on his way in. All of a sudden, some sleep sounded like the best idea in the world. "All right," she said. "But if anything goes wrong with Casey's take on things, I want back in."
"Of course," Graham lied smoothly, and Sarah let herself be lulled by the lie.
It was no surprise the next morning to find the carjacking death of a Buy More employee named Bartowski covered deep in the Local section of the L.A. Times. Sarah took just a minute to feel regret before she folded the paper and boarded her flight back to D.C.
Sarah's next assignment was to help put together what Bryce had destroyed. With her new (older, married) partner, Agent Sam Beckett, she traveled the globe locating sensitive information -- blueprints from a factory in Prague, munitions plans from a banana plant in Ecuador, intel on secret agents from what seemed like every government in the world. Most of the missions were things she could do in her sleep, but it was good to keep busy. She got in, did what she had to do, and got out.
"You're a machine, Walker," Beckett told her in a tone of wonder after she took out a roomful of Chinese agents who disapproved of her plans to recover information about American war planes.
"I do what I can," Sarah said absently, wiping a trickle of blood off her forehead. "Help me up."
And the next day, they were in Peru and Sarah got to find out that you really could kill a man with a spoon.
And so on. Different names, different towns, the cover changed but Sarah was still the same inside. Sometimes, polishing her gun, she would let herself think about what she was running from and if she would ever want to (have to?) stop, but she never let those moments of reflection soften her. She couldn't. She got soft, she got dead, that was how it was.
Until one day, they got word from Langley that Bryce had been recovered alive.
And then things really got interesting.
Sarah glanced down at her sandwich, shaking off whatever that had been. "At least I didn't burn it too bad."
[OOC: IAWL, baby. Some dialogue from Chuck vs. the Pilot.]