AN: I did it! I completed that tedious, mind-numbing social studies essay on the shaping of NZ and handed it in, edited on time! To celebrate, I posted this fic. It's a oneshot that's been in my head for sometime. Sarah goes through some of her old stuff at her mom's house post finale and finds a drawing. This is assuming she got her memories back at some point. Anyway, hope you enjoy and please review.
Sarah vs The Drawing
She's at her mother's house. the house she grew up in, looking through her childhood memories. There isn't much, other than the old piggybank her dad gave her, filled with money to pay for the wedding. There are a few old stuffed toys and that old shell game her dad used to give her to practice with. Among some of the stuff, she finds a drawing. Sarah gasped. She can't believe that her mom kept it for all those years.
Sarah looked down at it. It's a man and a woman holding hands, there's a little girl in the middle and in the background there is a house. She instantly recognizes it as her house. White, with the red door and a picket fence. The drawing is not perfect in accuracy, Sarah doesn't even remember how old she was when she drew it, yet still it seems perfect.
Because yes, Sarah Walker-Bartowski, as a child, had once dreamed of having a perfect, normal life with her mom and dad. Together, happy, like a real family. All in that little white house with the red door.
Suddenly, she remembers the day she drew it. Other than conning people she doesn't have all that many memories of her childhood, but this one seems to stick.
1986
She's old five years old and she's just successfully helped her father, pulling off her first con ever. It was very simple. She'd fake being lost, looking for her parents, crying a little, while her father went around pick pocketing. When he finally 'found' her, they climbed in the car to go get ice scoops, her father had insisted (not that she had argued) for all her hard work.
"Proud of you, darlin," her father had said. He rewards her, with a fifty dollar bill which goes into her piggybank and a double scoop of rocky road.
Now she's in her room, drawing a picture. She finished drawing the man, the woman and the little girl in the middle. She finishes drawing the white house in the background when she hears her parents fighting outside.
"She's five years old! You can't turn her into a con artist!" her mother argues outside.
"She doesn't know what it is. To her it's just rocky road and a cut of what I make!" her father argues back.
"Jack, she's your daughter! Not your partner in crime!"
"I'm providing!" he retorted. "What I do makes enough for food."
"Providing is what you do when you have a real job. One that's legal and that always puts food on the table. Not just after you managed to pull off one of your games!""
"You know what? I don't have to take this! I'm outta here!" her father says.
"Fine!"
Young Sam hears the front door slam shut and looks down at her drawing. She doesn't really get why they're fighting. Her dad's already taught her how to count cards and how not to fall for one of those shell games, but she doesn't understand what's going on. All she can tell is that it has something to do with her and now her dad is gone. She sees that all three of them are smiling in the picture and wonders now if it will ever happen.
Present Day- 2012
Sarah hears Chuck coming in with Molly and Emma and puts down the picture on a table as the three of them come into the house. Emma and Molly go elsewhere for some reason, but Chuck immediately goes up to her.
"We missed you," Chuck smiles at her and then gives her a peck on the cheek.
"I missed you too."
"So, did you find anything interesting?" he asked, noticing the paper in her hand.
"Hmmm? Yeah I guess," she showed him the drawing. He carefully examined it.
"You drew this?"
"Yeah. When I was about six."
"Is this the perfect family you always said you dreamed of as a kid," he asked. "With the white house and the red door," Chuck pointed to the house in the background. The one she had told him about after seducing him into telling her his plans for trying to find her the perfect home. He still had to laugh at that, after all, his wife could make him do absolutely anything.
She nodded and looked back at the paper, at the first hopefulness of her five year old self. Of Sam.
Chuck can tell she's kind of sad because she never actually got to have that. Her dream as a little girl, living with her mom and dad in that perfect white house, with the red door and the picket fence and being a normal little girl.
"Listen, Sarah," he said. "I can't change the past. But I promise you," Chuck wrapped his arms around her waist as she leaned back into him, he placed one of his hands on her stomach.
"This child, our child, is going to have the most amazing childhood ever. They're gonna have everything, I promise, the perfect home, the real family," he assured her.
"I know, I believe that. Because you're the father."
Chuck smiled and they kissed.
6 Years Later- 2018
Three year old Samantha Emma Bartowski sits at the dining table, doodling a picture. She can hear her two older brothers playing or arguing in the backyard of her home. The little white house, with a red door and a picket fence, she's lived there ever since she was born, they all had. When you're three there's not a whole lot about life you can start complaining about, but all in all, she's happy.
"Hey, Sammy," her mother greets her coming into the dining room.
"Mommy!' she grins widely. Everyone says she looks just like her mom with long blonde hair and big blue eyes, but her mom's always told her that she has her dad's smile. Running up into the arms of her mother, who scoops her up. Sam eagerly shows her the picture.
It's a picture of her family. The ex-spy can tell that much, there's her and Chuck and then two boys for Sam's brothers, Tyler Charles and Steven John and then her. Sarah remembers the drawing she had made as a child and then found while she was pregnant with Tyler.
"It's a very nice picture, Sammy," Sarah grins at her daughter.
"It's us."
"I know. It's beautiful," she smiles as he hears the door open and her husband walk through.
"Hey," he smiled, leaving his messenger bag my the door.
"Daddy!" Sam jumped out of her mother's arms and ran to her father.
"Hey sweetie," he smiles and gives her a kiss on top of her head. "I'm gonna talk with Mommy for awhile, can you go play with you brothers?"
She nods and runs of to the yard backyard to join her brothers in whatever game they're playing. Chuck goes up to his wife and gives her a peck o the lips, noticing the drawing in her hand.
"What's this?"
"This was done by your daughter," Sarah smiles proudly showing him and almost instantly, he recognizes the connection between this drawing and the one that Sarah had done when she was five.
"Remember how I promised you that our kids were gonna have your dream, the perfect home and the real family?"
Sarah nods. "Yeah. I believed you."
He grins. "Good, because it came true."
They went outside to watch their children running around in the backyard. There was no more spying, no more danger, just Chuck and Sarah and their family. The past didn't matter, this was their present and their future.
AN: Hope you enjoyed that, it's just a oneshot. Thanks for reading and please review. I will be posting the next chapter of United By Red tests at some stage, just don't know when.