For those looking for fluff and fun, turn away. This fic is brooding and morose, which is how I've felt lately. Basically, I'm using this fic to work out some of my issues. If you don't like it, that's cool. I wrote it more for therapeutic value anyway. But if you do like it, please, review.
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THE LONELY CHILD
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Some nights - most nights - Sarah Walker can't sleep. And when that happens, she doesn't react as one might expect. She rarely leaves her motel room. Once in a rare occurrence she'll find "their" spot on the beach, where she asked him to trust her. But she never goes down to the hotel bar for a nightcap. Nor does she read a book or watch a sappy movie.
Some nights she bothered to put forth the energy to don her workout gear and knock around her punching bag.
Most nights, nights like tonight, she simply slid into the floor by her bed and sat there. Her bare feet curled beneath her Indian style, her blue eyes staring out into the midnight sky. Silence reigning.
Some nights she cried. On those nights her thoughts typically wandered to those she had lost. The most recent addition to that list was Bryce. For so long, he was the most important person in her life. Her partner, her lover, her...
Thinking back, she didn't know if the word "friend" actually applied. They never talked, even about trivial matters. Bryce never knew of her enthusiasm for 1950s and 60s blues and soul music. Or her fondness for - of all sports - hockey.
Then there were thoughts of her mother. A woman whose fate Sarah wasn't even sure of. Any time she tried to ask her father, he answered with vague details of her "Going Away". Sarah couldn't even be sure if that meant she was alive or not. At this point, it shouldn't really matter. Twenty years later, the only memories she had of her mother was a flower-print sundress and hair that smelled like strawberries. While thoughts of her shouldn't matter - it was so long ago - somehow, for Sarah, they did.
On other nights she agonized. Mostly about the job. For so many years she had committed acts of...well, duty was the term the CIA used. Though in recent months Sarah truly began to wonder. Specifically, she began to wonder how some of those acts affected her. How they changed her. She had come to believe it wasn't for the better.
And on some nights, Sarah actually allowed herself to imagine of a life without the CIA. Of a life in which she loudly declared "That's enough!" and walked away. Or one in which she never joined to begin with. Where her father was a normal man and not a wanted grifter. Where her mother was actually...there.
Sarah stared at her fingers in the pale moonlight. This life was so...tiresome. Every day was a struggle. Not only against bad guys, but against herself.
What was the point? – she often wondered. The job was an endless cycle. Dispatch one group of bad guys only to have them replaced by another. Then go to work the next morning at some menial job beneath her skill level – Weinerlicious, Orange Orange, Subway. Then go on a cover date with a respectable guy who she had no future with whatsoever. Even during the rare pleasurable occasion as a fake date, it was never far from her mind how it too was a futile and pointless effort.
It seems her entire life was destined for this. Of existing and never living. Of doing because she simply had to, because it was expected of her. Of never having the things others took for granted.
Did she ever have a choice? Sarah tried in vain to remember a decisive moment, a moment where she could have decided to do or be something different. It saddened her terribly to think there never was.
From a young age she was essentially conscripted into her father's lifestyle. Stealing and conning. Living out of suitcases. Rarely spending more than a semester at any one school. Never having a chance to make friends or have a high school sweetheart.
Sarah wasn't surprised by the rage that began to boil within. Two years ago, perhaps she would have been. But anymore, Sarah felt slighted by the lack of normalcy she had during her childhood. God! She would love to have had something akin to normal to look back upon. Anything at all to give her some measure of comfort during rough times. Whether it be softball practice, a sleepover. She wondered what prom night would have been like.
What the hell was he thinking? Dragging a child all across the country, pulling her into his life of crime? Did she not warrant stability? Was the job always more important than her comfort and happiness?
It was the start of a disturbing trend, Sarah realized. Her father essentially created the daughter he wanted, rather than raising her. While other little girls were playing in their mother's gardens, Sarah was instructed in the finer points of lock-picking. And instead of trips to the zoo, she was taught to cruise neighborhoods and pick which houses were prime targets for looting.
The CIA was no better, she had come to realize. In the beginning, she actually thanked them for turning her from an ugly duckling into a swan. Not only did they give her a much-needed physical makeover, but also a psychological one. Instilling in her a confidence she never before knew.
But they never did anything to fix her emotional issues. To help her deal with her errant upbringing or the loss of her mother. Nor did they ever try. And even the makeover and confidence boosts fit their agenda to create an agent. That's essentially what they did. They fit her into their mold. Crammed weapons training and hand-to-hand combat techniques into her brain, along with seduction maneuvers, language skills, and etiquette. Whatever there was of her true self – however little there was – was abruptly wiped away and an entirely new person was created. A lethal debutante, she ruefully thought.
And now, even with Chuck, a man she quickly came to adore, the problem persisted. He continued to press girlfriend qualities upon her, insisted she could be a regular girl. Despite the fact it was entirely incongruent with the person the CIA created. And though she felt almost right with the illusion of being a normal girl, it was just that, an illusion. It was simply a mold he tried to force her into, not one she allowed herself to be poured in.
What was the point? She never had a choice. She was confined to this life. Her father never gave her any choice but the life of a grifter. In turn, she never had a choice but to join the CIA. And now? There still wasn't any choice. She couldn't resign. She couldn't...grow. The lifestyle didn't allow it.
God, what would it be like to choose? What sort of person would she have become? What would it be like if she could be her own person and not the person others needed her to be?
What would it be like to break free and do what she wanted? Without feeling guilt that she was abandoning the people who need her?
Sarah startled at the break in silence. Derisive laughter. It took a moment to realize it was she that laughed.
Twenty-eight years old, a hardened CIA agent, and she was contemplating running away.
Why the hell not? What was for her in Los Angeles? Working two jobs, one she hated, the other that made her frequently do things she hated. She had no family to speak of. No relationships that had any realistic potential, much as she might wish otherwise. What was the point of even waking up in the morning? What was the point of breathing?
Her iPhone chirped. With a heavy sigh, Sarah grabbed the device off her nightstand and found herself greeted by Chuck's smiling face. Any other time, any other hour, she might find herself charmed by the sight. But now...
"Hey Chuck...No...Listen, I can't talk...No, everything's fine." The last word she barely managed to choke out. "I just need some time alone...See you tomorrow."
She disconnected before Chuck could inquire further and tossed the phone carelessly aside. She ran her fingers through her hair.
What other choice was there but to keep waking up, to keep breathing? Maybe she'd find something tomorrow that would make living feel less like a chore and more like...life.
Maybe she would find hope.
THE END