POI fic: Clean Sweep
Title: Clean Sweep
Rating: G
Source: Person of Interest
Characters: Kara Stanton
Summary: AU from 3x16, 'RAM'. Let's assume Control was less impressed with Shaw's performance than Special Counsel. That probably means no one's getting out of Ordos alive.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make nothing from this but my own entertainment.
Word Count: 553
After Kara catches John Reese pulling out Daniel Casey’s teeth and is obliged to shoot both of them and dump their bodies in the river, she gets a new partner on temporary secondment from the ISA. She’s not sure what the reasoning is there, but the woman’s got a perfect military pedigree plus more medical training than John ever had, so Kara figures she’s meant to break Sameen Shaw in for fieldwork and hand her back to the ISA with freshly cut teeth and a collection of inter-agency contacts. Babysitting duty isn’t exactly the CIA’s way to say “Thanks for killing your partner of four years; we appreciate your job commitment and acknowledge that your impeccable service record remains unstained,” but fine, whatever. Kara had expected to land on the watchlist for a while. She can live with that.
Shaw’s good. She’s a natural, really, and Kara realises at once that Shaw’s not going to need any speeches about walking in the dark, or being it. Shaw doesn’t need to hear she’s doing the right thing. Shaw knows she is, or doesn’t care, or hasn’t thought about it much one way or the other. Shaw does her job, and does it well. She enjoys her work. She doesn’t ask questions. Kara has to appreciate that.
It’s different, though. Well, of course it is. It’s probably unfair for Kara to compare Shaw to John, but Kara worked with John for years, so screw that, she’s going to do it anyway. She’d got used to John worrying over what a target might have done and breathing down Kara’s neck when she really got going in an interrogation session. Shaw only yawns. She seems, if anything, hungry. There’s none of the friction that had livened up working with John, even if there’s no need to worry about Shaw doing something stupid that might compromise Kara either. Shaw’s a good little soldier. She’s never going to get caught faking a target’s death.
Kara thinks John had always known it was going to be Kara who put him down eventually. He hadn’t seemed all that sorry about it. Better her, Kara supposes, than one of Mark’s goons with a sniper rifle in some dark alley. At least this way someone who’d known John knew what had happened to him. “Sorry, John,” she’d said. “It’s not personal. You just got careless.” He’d actually smiled. “Sorry, John,” she’d muttered again, as his body disappeared into the dark.
It’s going to take a while to get used to working with someone else. There’s no point in getting too attached to Shaw, though, because she’s going back to the ISA at some point and then Kara will be assigned a real partner to knock into shape, just as she knocked John more or less into shape over the years. They wrap up the Moroccan job with time to spare. “Ordos, China,” Mark says, and Kara’s got to admit she’s glad it’s Shaw who’ll have her back on this one, rather than some new kid straight from the Farm. Kara doesn’t know Shaw yet like she knew John, but she’s confident in Shaw’s ability to handle herself in the field.
Besides, Kara does know one thing about Sameen Shaw. Unlike John, Shaw follows orders. On a job like this, that’s no small thing.
Rating: G
Source: Person of Interest
Characters: Kara Stanton
Summary: AU from 3x16, 'RAM'. Let's assume Control was less impressed with Shaw's performance than Special Counsel. That probably means no one's getting out of Ordos alive.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make nothing from this but my own entertainment.
Word Count: 553
After Kara catches John Reese pulling out Daniel Casey’s teeth and is obliged to shoot both of them and dump their bodies in the river, she gets a new partner on temporary secondment from the ISA. She’s not sure what the reasoning is there, but the woman’s got a perfect military pedigree plus more medical training than John ever had, so Kara figures she’s meant to break Sameen Shaw in for fieldwork and hand her back to the ISA with freshly cut teeth and a collection of inter-agency contacts. Babysitting duty isn’t exactly the CIA’s way to say “Thanks for killing your partner of four years; we appreciate your job commitment and acknowledge that your impeccable service record remains unstained,” but fine, whatever. Kara had expected to land on the watchlist for a while. She can live with that.
Shaw’s good. She’s a natural, really, and Kara realises at once that Shaw’s not going to need any speeches about walking in the dark, or being it. Shaw doesn’t need to hear she’s doing the right thing. Shaw knows she is, or doesn’t care, or hasn’t thought about it much one way or the other. Shaw does her job, and does it well. She enjoys her work. She doesn’t ask questions. Kara has to appreciate that.
It’s different, though. Well, of course it is. It’s probably unfair for Kara to compare Shaw to John, but Kara worked with John for years, so screw that, she’s going to do it anyway. She’d got used to John worrying over what a target might have done and breathing down Kara’s neck when she really got going in an interrogation session. Shaw only yawns. She seems, if anything, hungry. There’s none of the friction that had livened up working with John, even if there’s no need to worry about Shaw doing something stupid that might compromise Kara either. Shaw’s a good little soldier. She’s never going to get caught faking a target’s death.
Kara thinks John had always known it was going to be Kara who put him down eventually. He hadn’t seemed all that sorry about it. Better her, Kara supposes, than one of Mark’s goons with a sniper rifle in some dark alley. At least this way someone who’d known John knew what had happened to him. “Sorry, John,” she’d said. “It’s not personal. You just got careless.” He’d actually smiled. “Sorry, John,” she’d muttered again, as his body disappeared into the dark.
It’s going to take a while to get used to working with someone else. There’s no point in getting too attached to Shaw, though, because she’s going back to the ISA at some point and then Kara will be assigned a real partner to knock into shape, just as she knocked John more or less into shape over the years. They wrap up the Moroccan job with time to spare. “Ordos, China,” Mark says, and Kara’s got to admit she’s glad it’s Shaw who’ll have her back on this one, rather than some new kid straight from the Farm. Kara doesn’t know Shaw yet like she knew John, but she’s confident in Shaw’s ability to handle herself in the field.
Besides, Kara does know one thing about Sameen Shaw. Unlike John, Shaw follows orders. On a job like this, that’s no small thing.