Hey there! This is my first fanfic so I would really appreciate your constructive criticism on this chapter. If you guys like it I will hopefully keep going till my ideas run out but if you think its not worth keeping please tell me and I will continue to delude myself in private instead of online. The story mostly centers around Sarah and how she was "frozen" before Chuck and how she begins to "thaw" when she meets him. Please tell me what you think.
Part One: Frozen
Back at the "Farm" they described her as frosty which if Sarah Walker wasn't actually freezing, she might have found funny . But laughter was just about last thing on her mind as she crept around the undisclosed compound following the sounds of argumentative Russian. She was in the middle of St Petersburg's warehouse district somewhere near the waterfront if her nose wasn't mistaken. She had been briefed back at Langley on the three Russian thugs she had spent the better part of the night tailing around the city. Sarah had waited for them to leave no less than five separate clubs before finally coming to where they were storing the Intel her bosses wanted so badly.
It was textbook CIA for her superiors to send her off with a pat on the back and a firm reminder for her to do her job, to risk her life for a piece of Intel that could be completely worthless for all she knew. But this was her life now and ignorance of the real reasons behind the missions she was asked to complete was normal for a CIA officer like herself. Her bosses never bothered to tell her any more information than was pertinent to her assignment. Lies, deception and mistrust had been her life ever since she had been forced into accepting entrance into the CIA's "Farm". Once there she had been cut to fit into the mould the CIA had wanted her to fill; A beautiful confident woman who was trained in every martial art under the sun, a woman who could shed identities like clothes and never let anyone glimpse the vulnerable unloved girl beneath her hard icy exterior, a woman whose gun was merely an extension of her hand.
She was grateful for that last piece of weapons training that enabled her to smoothly draw her Smith&Weston from the waistband of her jeans. She peered around the container she was hiding behind and saw the three men clustered around a smaller blue container with Russian graffiti scrawled along the sides. The two largest thugs whom she recognized as Ivan and Igor Ivanov, were arguing in heated Russian while the slight man behind them fiddling with the locks on the container must be their other brother Isaak. She remembers holding back a snort of laughter during her briefing back at Langley when she read their names. Who would use the same first letter in the names all of their sons? A Russian. She smirked and silently stepped around the edge of the container keeping the barrel of her gun raised. They had their backs to her so they didn't see her creeping towards them, ready to shoot.
One of the only things she had enjoyed learning during her lonely stay at the Farm had been languages. She had always been an intelligent girl but a life on the run from the law didn't exactly set her up to enjoy the smoothest of educations. She had done her best to study when ever her father thought it was safe enough to enroll in a school but those occasions had been few and far between. So it didn't shock Sarah that when she was given the opportunity to become fluent in Spanish, French, Polish, Russian, Italian, Arabic and Chinese; she had absorbed them like a sponge.
She hadn't been to Russia for a couple of years but as a disciplined Agent she tried to listen to a news bulletin in Russian at least once a week as well as one each in the other six languages she was fluent in. If anyone questioned her meticulous studies she told them she wanted to prepare herself for any situation where she might have to pose as anyone of those nationalities. This answer usually satisfied her bosses when they questioned her about what she did with her mandatory vacation time (Like they even cared).The truth was she hated free time and would do anything to avoid moments when her thoughts weren't occupied. Free time was dangerous because it lead to thinking and thinking was not something Agent Walker liked to do. Thinking meant contemplating her life and its utter meaninglessness. If her bosses knew the truth they would tell her that she had a purpose, that she was serving the greater good. They would be wrong. Sarah's definition of right and wrong had always been a shade of gray when she was growing up with a con man for a father but three years in the CIA had seen even that grey become murkier. If the people she protected knew what she did to protect the "greater good" they would lose all faith in their government.
Focus Sarah Agent Walker snapped, shaking Sarah out of her revelry. She had reached the end of the container and stood in the shadow of its overhang and was now close enough to hear the guttural sounds of the men's conversation.
"Father entrusted this shipment to us so we must make sure it makes the deadline." Igor, she recognized, he was the taller of the two.
"What is so important about this shipment?-"
"-I don't know! I don't want to know!" Igor interrupted his brother. "But if we don't get it to Cynthia by the however"
Cynthia Sarah noted. Who was she? Her name hadn't come up in her briefing.
"We will get it to her" Ivan said trying to comfort his brother "But why is father so afraid of these clients?"
"Because they killed Viktor" Igor said quietly and Sarah had to strain to catch his words.
Viktor Novakov was a man Sarah could identify. He was an associate of the three brothers' father, a trusted friend of the Ivanov's and a man wanted by Interpol for drug trafficking, supplying weapons to terrorist cells in Northern Africa and for money laundering.
Isaak walked over after hearing his brother's confession and the three began to lament their father's friend's passing. After five minutes of them reliving the good times with "Uncle Viktor", Sarah decided she had had enough.
She fired a round into the frigid air and felt the familiar recoil of the gun on her cold hands. The three men squealed like pigs and dropped to the ground trying to cover their heads and put their hands up at the same time.
"Don't shoot! Don't Shoot" Igor yelled, looking around wildly trying to find the person who had taken the shot, the other two were simply to mute with terror to do much more than stare at their brother.
Sarah found herself rolling her eyes Some Russian bad guys they are but she quickly smoothed her features back into their emotionless mask and took a step towards the men and out of the shadows.
"Put your hands behind your head and turn to face me." Sarah said calmly with a voice like flint. The three men however didn't react calmly and began scrambling around to face the source of the sound. Agent Walker's lips curved upwards in an amused smile at their fear. She could see in her mind's eye what they were seeing. Some of her previous partners had described to her what she looked like in the midst of the action; Ice blue eyes completely devoid of emotion, steady hands that didn't hesitate for a second to pull the trigger and the small one sided smile of pleasure that always emerged when she watched her prey squirm. Agent Walker was proud of the fact that the image of the uncaring spy she had spent years perfecting was always in place. Sarah however was terrified that she could be that person. A killer.
Her mask firmly in place, Sarah stared down at the three men whimpering on their knees at her feet.
"Which one of you knows the combination for the container?" Sarah asked in a monotone, her face completely devoid of emotion.
Issak raised a shaky hand and began to stutter out some unintelligible Russian phrases of which Sarah could only discern a "don't shoot me! " Which almost made her laugh. Obviously.
"Get up!" She commanded gesturing with her gun for him to walk over and unlock the container. "Don't try anything stupid or I'll shoot them," aiming her gun now at his two other brothers.
Issak clambered to his feet and stumbled over to the crate. His fingers shook so much he had a hard time turning the padlocks but after three minutes of fumbling the chains finally fell lose.
"On your knees" Sarah said as Issak walked back over to when his brothers kneeled.
This was the part of the mission that Sarah hated but she had her orders. Langley had made it very clear that she had no alternative. When the container was open there was no further use for the three brothers and she had been ordered to kill them all. "Make it messy" was their exact words. They wanted to soften up the Ivanov's father when they interrogated him. Scare him into telling them everything.
Sarah swallowed in distaste. Agent Walker thought it was a very good way of breaking one of the world's most notorious criminals. But Sarah's opinion wouldn't help her complete the mission. She had to be buried in a place deep inside where Agent Walker's emotions couldn't escape.
One blink of self pity was all that Sarah allowed herself before she fired off three rounds in quick succession. There was no time for a surprised yell from any of the men. They simply fell face forward into the snow, their blood making little red ribbons on the white canvas.
Agent Walker's training made her quick to act even while her brain was lagging behind. 1: Case the scene 2: Put away her gun 3: Take the necessary surveillance photos for the Director 4: Call for Backup 5: Wait.
Waiting… Agent Walker didn't like waiting. It gave Sarah an opportunity to get out of her cage and tear at the seams of her carefully constructed mask.
Sarah's breaths came in quick gasps. She rubbed at her hands and the raggedly bitten nails trying in vain to scrub off the invisible blood dying her hands a brilliant shade of scarlet.
"Sarah?" She hears a soft voice from over her shoulder ask gently.
Agent Walker whips around, gun drawn. It can't be part of the CIA's team. They would address her as Agent Walker and make an unemotional request for a report on her mission, not call her name in the concerned tone used by the dark haired woman now standing in front of her.
"Hands up! What's your name?" Sarah yelled at the stranger who despite the gun being pointed at her, looked calm. She's good Sarah thought grudgingly.
"I'm unarmed Sarah," the woman said making a show of raising her hands above her head and away from any potential weapon she could draw, "And I'm just here to talk," she continued in the same unnervingly calm tone.
Sarah hadn't missed the fact that the women apparently knew her name and therefore her record. Why was she being so trusting? Didn't she know that Agent Walker killed first and asked questions later?
"How do you know my name?" Sarah barked keeping her finger firmly on the trigger.
"I know a lot about you Sarah Walker born in San Diego California January 23rd 1981 to parents Jack and a woman whose name was redacted from your file. Your father is a con-man and at the age of 12 you left your Grandmother to join him on the run. You were recruited when you returned to San Diego in1998 and at the same time your father was apprehended by the law. You're current CIA alias is Sarah Walker but you have been Jenny Burton formerly Rebbecca Franco formerly Katie O'Connell formerly-"
"-I get your point but how do you know all this?"
"I work for a secret fraction inside of the CIA called FULCRUM. We do our best to ensure this country's proper standing in the world and we are looking for agents like your who want to make a real difference doing things that really matter to the future of this country." The woman's eyes began to light up as she described the organization that Sarah could see she had dedicated her life to protecting. Sarah hadn't seen the same reaction in herself for years, not since she had been first recruited and thought she could live a life of adventure while making a difference. That dream had died long ago.
"I can see you want to get away from this Sarah. I know you want to make a difference-"
"You don't know anything about me," Sarah snarled realizing the woman had played her. She had said all the right words to create a tear in Agent Walker's carefully constructed mask but as soon as the woman thought she had Sarah, the tear was sewn up again. "You're not part of the CIA, we would know about an infiltration. You're nothing but a terrorist for going against the government."
"Really?" the woman said slowly raising an eyebrow," Am I wrong to go against the same government who sent you on the assassination mission to Lisbon? And the seduction mission in France?"
Sarah's glare faltered. She had built careful walls to block out the memories of those specific missions and with one mention this woman has brought them crashing down.
All at once she could see the images she had tried to forget. There were the wide fearful eyes of a child staring up at her as she held the gun to his mother's head. The group of greasy French politicians, sickening smiles nonexistent as the lay face first in their dinners, dosed with the cyanide she had given them. Her hands red with blood she couldn't scrub off, a fitting scarlet letter for the atrocities she had committed.
Without any command from the rational part of Sarah's brain, she lowered her gun arm to wrap it around her aching chest. It didn't stop her raged breathing but it did help to hold her broken heart in place.
"Sarah," said the woman in the same unnervingly considerate tone she had used before. She walked forward and placed a comforting hand on Sarah's heaving shoulder.
Sarah reeled back, secretly pleased that her spy instincts were still in place while trying to suppress the sudden urge to cry at the first show of human affection in over three years.
"Stay back," Sarah warned, afraid of the simple power of sympathy.
The women looked unaffected by Sarah's actions. In fact the only time had seen her express any kind of emotion past this cool calm sympathy was when she described her cause, a cause she wanted Sarah to join, a cause Sarah could fight for. A cause called FULCRUM.
It was as if the woman could see the cogs turning in Sarah's head and so she remained silent, letting the silence hang. The bleep of the walkie she had forgotten to turn off startled Sarah and she quickly fumbled for the button.
"Agent Walker we are five minutes from your position. Is it secure?" The unemotional voice of the backup leader asked. With shaking hands she grasped the device and raised it to her lips.
"Yes," Sarah said managing to sound almost normal, "I am secure."
The woman looked on approvingly, sensing Sarah was ready to give in.
"I'll be in touch," she said simply and before Sarah was able to react, she had vanished into the shadows.
Sarah stood rooted to the spot as the CIA's teams began to secure the area and get to work on the bodies. She let the frenzy of activity flow around her as her mind churned over the new information she had been given. It was an opportunity to get away from the failure that was her life and make a real impact for the only thing she had left to hold dear. An opportunity to absolve herself of her sins. An absolution that will allow her to sleep without the wide eyes of the child haunting her dreams.
Sarah watches the CIA's teams scuttle around her while rubbing at the invisible bloodstains coating her hands. She has three dead bodies at her feet, an overwhelming pain in her chest and one huge decision to make.