"Ms. Grímsdóttir..."
Anna squinted at her screen, the pixels having gone blurry, in several ways. Metaphorically, because she felt like she was no closer to deciphering the information warfare algorithms than she had been when she decrypted the file several hours ago. Literally, because she'd been awake for something like thirty hours now and her ocular muscles were beginning to give out.
"...Anna..."
She rubbed the corner of her eye, her index finger slipping beneath the lens of her glasses. She typically stuck in a pair of contacts when she was meeting with the Powers That Be, but the red-eye she'd caught back from Okinawa had forced her to swap them out for her wire frames...
Back to the code. In addition to being an incredibly-sophisticated bit of malware that was possibly the most dangerous collection of binaries she'd ever had access to, the thing had been coded by an absolute maniac with zero interest in cleaning his code. Sloppy formatting, gargantuan hairballs, inconsistent nomenclature, and not a single line of intelligible comments in ten thousand lines of code. It was enough to drive her mad, which was exactly what it was-
"Grim!"
Grim's head snapped up like a student caught napping in class, only to find one Colonel Irving Lambert staring down at her, an indistinct mix of annoyance and concern on his face. A couple of men in suits stood behind him, casting curious glances at the woman he'd just shouted at.
"We're done, Ms. Grímsdóttir," said Lambert, making an indistinct gesture towards the gargantuan conference table, where fresh-faced aides were scrambling to collect binders and name plates.
"Right."
Anna slammed the lid of her laptop - a extensively-modified ThinkBook that required her thumbprint and a 20-character passcode to unlock - and raised herself from her seat, tugging her skirt straight as she did. The suit had been ill-fitting back in college when she'd bought it, and age had done it no favors. And what twenty-something Anna had been thinking when she'd gone for something creamy pink was a total enigma to the Grímsdóttir of today.
"Thank you, Colonel, your explanations were appreciated, as always," said one of the suited men, whom Grim vaguely recognized as a Senator from... Tennessee, maybe? Said Senator glanced at Grim, made a vague head-nod of acknowledgement in her direction, and then made his way out the door. Lambert spent a few more minutes exchanging handshakes and small talk, before he gestured for Grim to follow suit.
"Well... I'm glad those are over," Lambert finally said, after they'd made their way out of the "secure" portion of the Hart Senate Office Building.
"Don't jinx it," Grim pleaded. She wasn't normally one for superstitions, but she'd spent way too much of the past month listening to Lambert repeat the same dull, dreary, and grossly over-simplified briefing to every Senator and Representative with a say in the NSA's budget. Lambert had dragged her sullen and jet-lagged body to a dozen-odd committee hearings, Congressional briefings, and "listening sessions", which she had attended with the enthusiasm of a teenager on 'Take Your Daughter To Work Day'.
Lambert had been doing this for twenty years. Her whines fell on deaf ears.
"Any plans for tonight?"
Grim let out a short snort. "I have a hot date with some heuristic algorithms we pulled from Tokyo Bay. If I don't come into work tomorrow, it's because I cracked my skull banging my head against a wall."
Lambert smiled softly at her self-deprecation. having not a sliver of doubt in her ability to (eventually) figure it out. "So you're heading back to Maryland?"
She nodded. "Yup. Might check out that new Newseum building, if I'm already here. Don't wait up for me."
"Understood. And thank you, Grim, for-"
Lambert's rote statement of appreciation was cut-off as a tall, bald man shouted his name, bear-hugging the Colonel before he had time to blink. Anna quickly deduced that they were old Army buddies and wordlessly excused herself, making her way through the carpeted & marbled corridors until she could once again breathe fresh air.
She had to blink again on her way out. It had been high noon when their government-standard Chevy Suburban had pulled into the Senate garages, but the Sun was already dipping below the horizon, bathing the District in pink and orange hues.
Something coiled in her stomach. Even a professional indoorsman like herself found the vista stunning. Which somehow made the thought of spending another night straining her eyes against those infernal algorithms...
"Grim!"
For the second time in an hour, someone called out her name and snapped her back to reality. Except this time it came from a voice she had definitely not expected to hear.
"Sam?"
And, sure as day, there stood Sam Fisher, bouncing gently on the balls of his feet, hands tucked into the pockets of a black suit jacket. Grim made her way down the steps to the sidewalk, where Sam offered her an amused smile.
"What're you doing on the Hill?" Anna asked, as soon as she'd composed herself. "Lambert call in a favor?"
"Nah," answered Sam, with a dismissive wave. "Dropping in on an old buddy from Kuwait. Except now he's the newest Congressman from Virginia."
"A much more dangerous battlefield, I'm sure."
Sam shrugged, apparently not feeling her cynicism. "So, how're you celebrating the last of these Congressional powwows?"
Now it was Grim's turn to be the unenthusiastic one. "Back to the grind. Those heuristic algorithms aren't going to decompile themselves."
A flicker of guilt briefly crossed Sam's face. It was, after all, entirely his fault that she had those algorithms to work with in the first place, even if Grim was only complaining in jest.
"Aw, come on, Grim, let's get something to eat, at least. Treat yourself to the fine dining of D.C."
A reflexive decline died in her throat. Like many a nerd, Grim was a workaholic by nature, and her social life had atrophied accordingly. Spending her days immersed in a world of codeword-clearance material hadn't done much for her small-talk, either. But something about Sam always put her at ease. Which was probably a bit strange, given that she actually knew what he did for a living, but...
"...fine, Sam. Twist my arm, won't you."
Sam smiled, just a little smugly, as Grim allowed herself to be harangued into a nice dinner on the town. Maybe it was all the CIA training that made him so good with people, but Grim was willing to bet The Farm that it was something intrinsic to the man.
"Where to, Sam?" Grim asked, as they began making their way west along Constitution Avenue. The neighborhood surrounding the Capitol was something of a dead zone in the evening, all department headquarters and law offices that tended to clear out by five. They had the street practically to themselves, the Washington Monument piercing the horizon across the grassy expanse of the National Mall.
"Oh. Hm... I actually can't think of anything," Sam replied, a little sheepishly.
"It's okay, we're used to those senior moments," Grim lobbed back, effortlessly.
"We'll see who's laughing when my generation has bankrupted Medicare for yours." He actually glanced over his shoulder at that, as if to make sure a wandering AARP lobbyist hadn't overheard them. "Come on, I know a place in Georgetown. You'll love it."
They continued their descent from Capitol Hill in silence, enjoying the strange serenity the District afforded them. A few tourists were still out snapping photos, but the panoply of Smithsonian Museums were closed, and the visitors would soon be making the treks back to their hotels. Off in the distance of trio of helicopters flew in just above the treeline - Marine One and its escorts, they both figured - the local take on ornithology.
A few minutes later they were back in Federal Triangle, where a few late-working office drones and embassy staffers were still buzzing about. They waited around for the Circulator, making small talk about nothing. The weather and local politics, which boyfriends of Sarah's Sam was pretending to dislike.
The Circulator - a squat little bus which compensated for the fact that the Metro didn't actually go near Georgetown - took them on a jaunty little loop of the more scenic part of D.C. Anna had spent enough time as an employee of the federal government to know that this was only a sliver of the city. A few blocks north of M Street and the grand Classical buildings faded away, and the city regressed to typical Mid-Atlantic neighborhoods. She reminded herself of this so she didn't feel like too much of a snap-happy tourist.
They arrived in Georgetown some minutes later, Sam even offering her a hand as they disembarked. It was strange how natural the gesture was with him. On most men it would have come across as grandiose and ill-suited, an overly-conspicuous display of chivalry. But Sam was old-fashioned enough that it didn't feel condescending in the slightest. (And, trapped in her ill-fitting pumps, Grim was wordlessly grateful).
The worst of D.C.'s tourist season was over, but tony Georgetown was as alive as always. What it lacked in monuments and museums it made up with fine dining and timeless charm, the quaint anachronism of its stone-tiled streets and antiquated canals. Anna actually quite liked it, though she would never in a million years be able to afford a place here, unless she wanted to sublet a student dorm.
Sam lead Anna off the main street, further south, towards the Potomac. Grim didn't recognize the alley they went into, just beside the C&O Canal, but allowed Sam to open the door to a restaurant she could have walked past a dozen times without noticing.
No sooner had she crossed the threshold than the maître d was rushing towards her, an elderly Asian gentleman with an apologetic but stern expression on his face. "Sorry, no tables," he stated, in clipped tones. Anna spun around to convey the bad news to Sam, only to find the spy smiling broadly.
"Tài, wow, didn't expect to see you still working here," greeted Fisher, as the two shook hands, then pulled in for an warm embrace.
"Mister Sam Fisher! You came back! Right this way." Without another word Tài began ushering Sam to a small table tucked away in the back, with Grim following a few strides behind like the unwanted step-child. The restaurant was small, bordering on cozy, the other patrons mostly well-dressed couples in their fifties and up. The decor was distinctly French - candles and silverware and white tablecloths - and Grim wordlessly dreaded a menu of indecipherable Frankish delicacies. If it wasn't in Fort Meade's cafeteria or any of its vending machines, odds were that Anna hadn't heard of it.
Sam took the seat opposite Grim - Tài seemed to belatedly remember her and make a show of pulling her chair out - and Anna quickly realized that this was the kind of establishment that didn't put prices on the menus. Fuck.
Tài set about lighting the small candle between them. "So, Mister Fisher! This is the Sarah I have heard so much about!"
The two NSA super-spies sat in stunned silence for a second. Then Grim let out a buffoonish guffaw of laughter, and Sam blushed a vibrant shade of crimson.
"This is Anna, Tài, she's a co-worker," Sam said, a little too loudly, even as Grim was choking back tears. "Sarah is much younger!" He raised his hand to the height an eight-year old would stand at, for emphasis.
Tài had excused himself by the time Anna was finished dabbing her eyes with her napkin. It wasn't that funny a misunderstanding, but she was badly sleep-deprived, and the giggles had finally claimed her. At least it hadn't been at work.
"Oh my god... I suppose I should be flattered," Anna finally said, helping herself to a large sip of water. She managed to suppress the giggles long enough to swallow. "Thanks for taking me out, Dad."
Sam was clearly less amused by the error. "Keep laughing and I'll take away your computer privileges for the weekend," he replied, gruffly.
"Oh don't even joke about that, I could use a vacation," Grim stated. Without even thinking she tapped her foot against the handbag containing her laptop, subconsciously affirming that it was still there.
"You have any vacation days stored up?"
"Over a hundred, I think," she answered, her tone finally losing its giddy edge. "Or less, if they don't carry over anymore. I keep forgetting to check. You?"
Sam shrugged. The nature of his work meant he had a lot of downtime, though it also meant that he could rarely travel beyond Pennsylvania without making special plans for a hasty deployment. "I'm more of a, uh, stay-cation guy."
"How very Millennial of you," Anna quipped.
Tài returned, and Sam spent a good five minutes haranguing him about the wine list, before finally picking a Burgundy for the two of them. Sam muttered something about charging it to Lambert's expense account, and after Tokyo Bay, Grim really had no idea if he was joking.
"So how do you two know each other?" Anna asked, once Tài had withdrawn again, their orders taken.
Sam did that discreetly-checking-the-room-out glance of his. "Tài's Vietnamese. South Vietnamese. Fled Saigon on a Huey, back when he was younger and presumably better-looking." Another quick pause. "He's something of a regional expert. Whom I occasionally consult about things. Consulted," Sam corrected. "Now he makes twice as much as I do running this place."
"It is a very nice little venue," Anna said, agreeably. "Though I haven't felt this unfashionable since high school." Far be it for the Grim Reaper to give much thought to her attire, but while her conservative skirt suit rendered her invisible on Capitol Hill, it made her stand out like a sore thumb in a restaurant filled with millionaires.
"Don't worry about it," Sam reassured her. The t-shirt beneath his suit jacket probably didn't meet the dress code, after all. Though damned if he couldn't pull the look off better than the wannabe power brokers from K Street.
A bottle of red was brought out, and began Tài describing its merits in the melodic French of a bygone colonial empire. Sam nodded his approval and two glasses were poured, an expert flick of the wrist ensuring not a drop was wasted.
"Cheers," said Sam, picking up his glass by the stem and leaning across the table. Anna mirrored the motion, and his glass clinked delicately against hers. This close, she could smell his cologne. (Sage and cedar, quite the combination of aromas.) "To your promotion."
Anna raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize you'd heard about that." It was more a title-bump than a promotion, since Anna was far too skilled to actually be re-assigned anywhere, but the small increase in pay was certainly appreciated.
Sam gave her a mischievous smile. "There are no secrets from me, Grim," he said, with mock seriousness.
"Then here's to you," Anna replied, raising her glass again. "On passing your physical examination, again."
Sam scowled, but drank to it all the same. The truth was it was a very routine examination - one put off for far too long by the East Asia crisis - and he had passed it with his usual flying colors.
Even the prostate exam.
Tài returned some time later with their dishes - Anna belatedly realized that there didn't seem to be any other waiters at all, possible only because the restaurant was so damn small. Sam's plate was a platter of beef & veggies, Grim's was something he assured her was actually duck. "Bon appétit, Mister Fisher, Miss Anna." Tài offered a flourishing bow before withdrawing.
Grim found her fork and knife, twirling the latter unthinkingly. "You know, given your line of work, a surprising number of people seem to recognize you on sight," she mused, making her first carving of the meat.
"Good," Sam replied, a forkful of beef already in his mouth. "Means I won't have to spend six months pretending to process visas in Oman ever again." That got him a small smile, one of the hundreds of anecdotes he'd regaled them with over the years. Inside jokes that only the spookiest of spooks would ever be privy to.
The dinner was spectacular, even to a palette numbed by over-saturated and sugar-coated meals. And it wasn't just the food, if Anna was being honest: Sam was the ideal dining companion. He was intelligent, he was worldly, he was cultured. He could talk about French cuisine or the bouquet of a wine without coming off as a snob. He could talk about old movies, and office politics, and a thousand little things Anna usually missed while immersed in her world of ones and zeroes.
She took another sip of her wine, which - now that Sam had pointed it out to her - really did have a hint of licorice to it. Sam was talking to Tài again, something about China, practicing some obviously-extremely-rusty Vietnamese. Grim had taken enough language proficiency crash courses in her time to know what 'minimal functionality' sounded like.
Not that it still wasn't impressive to watch. Sam was one of those people who seemed to be neurologically hard-wired for picking up new languages. She was no slouch herself - hell, she'd learned to functionally read Georgian in a couple of weeks - but she swore Fisher had to have a Babel fish squirreled away somewhere.
The wine and duck fat were definitely going to her head. Grim was almost comically lightweight when it came to alcohol - one more reason she hadn't been a great match for college - but right now she didn't mind the warm and fuzzy feelings of ethanol on her system.
Sam needed to shave. If he gave that five o'clock shadow much longer to live it would morph into a full-grown beard, she was certain. Scraggly salt-and-pepper. As it was he was rockin' a solid George Clooney impersonation, circa Ocean's Eleven, what with that 'mature bachelor' and suave open jacket and...
...okay, Grim, time to put the wine down.
She giggled a little at her own internal monologue, earning her bemused looks from both Sam and Tài. Tài collected their plates a few minutes later, Grim politely declining an offer for a second glass. Dessert was a crème brûlée good enough to make her want to run away and join a culinary school. The conversation flowed naturally, between spoonfuls. She bickered amicably with Sam about whether Paris' beauty was overrated (he was too much of a sentimental geezer to be objective, Anna knew). Sam revealed where an electric shock pellet was still causing muscle pains (nowhere pretty).
All in all, she couldn't have asked for a nicer night.
Sam and Tài settled the bill in a weird English-French-Vietnamese hybrid and five minutes of arguing. (Anna didn't catch much, apart from the fact that Sam obviously didn't know the Vietnamese phrase for 'on the house' and didn't want to take advantage of an old friend). Anna collected her bag and followed Sam out the door, this time indifferent to the sideways glances being shot her way by patrons of higher social echelons.
It was a warm night, for which Grim was grateful. Icelandic heritage notwithstanding she had a shockingly poor tolerance for the cold. Or maybe she was just fortified by alcohol. (Just how lightweight do you think you are, Grim?)
They walked back at a leisurely pace towards the less-civilized part of the District, staying close to the Potomac, along the southwestern edge of the city. A Coast Guard boat seemed to shadow them along the way, before drifting off to attend to some business on Theodore Roosevelt Island. It was an impossibly relaxing experience, after the pressure-cooker of the past few months. She could actually take a few hours to herself without feeling like she was derelicking her duty. Hell, she might even sleep in tomorrow, no alarm required, instead of just napping for a few hours between crises. She still had the algorithms to work on, sure, but there was no real urgency to them now, with the geopolitical order returned to the status quo ante bellum. There'd be another crisis soon enough - of that she had no doubt - but tonight they could enjoy a walk in peace.
A bit more than a half-hour later the streets enlivened a little bit, as they entered Foggy Bottom, passing by freshmen from the George Washington University who made Grim feel ancient. (This must be what Sam feels like, except all the time). Their conversation drifted from work and geopolitics back to Vietnamese cuisine and Continental tourist traps, sentences that could be overheard without a security clearance.
They finally reached the Foggy Bottom Metro, signaling to Anna that midnight was coming and her carriage would be reverting to a pumpkin, so to speak.
"Which way are you heading?" asked Sam, as they made their way to the Station's cavernous platform, waiting for the trains to arrive. Somehow, they'd manage to walk all this way without sparing a moment to discuss their evening plans.
"East," Anna stated, indicating her side of the platform with a jab of her thumb. "We have a satellite office near L'Enfant, where I'm going to try to get some work done. Some of us still have to earn their salaries." Sam nodded, wordlessly conceding the battle against Grim's workaholic tendencies. "You?"
"West. I parked by Crystal City." Anna hmm'd in wordless acknowledgement. "You okay to get back safely?" Anna shot him a glance that she intended to be derisive, but probably just came off as silly. "What, D.C. can be a dangerous place at night."
"In, like, the 90s, Sam," Anna chided. "Oh, right, I forgot, you haven't been to Times Square since Taxi Driver."
"Very funny," Sam said. "Don't cross the Anacostia."
"Save the overprotective-father act for Sarah, Fisher," Anna said, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the arrival of the Orange Line train. "I can take care of myself."
Sam looked slightly abashed, toeing the floor as Anna boarded the train. "I know you can," he said, without a shred of false pretense. "Just want you to be safe."
"That's what we pay you to do," Anna answered. And it was true. Because there was simply no way Fisher wouldn't have burned out if he didn't feel such a powerful duty to protect. "See you Monday?"
The doors slid shut before Sam could say anything, but his nod was answer enough. Their gazes didn't break until the train began pulling away.
As Foggy Bottom was replaced with the blackness of WMATA's tunnels, Anna let out an indistinct sigh and found herself a seat in the near-empty car. With a slight grunt she hoisted her laptop out of her bag, hoping to get some work done. She stuck in her earphone jack and called up a playlist of dōjin MP3s she'd stumbled across a few months back.
With a flurry of keystrokes, Grim opened a text editor to get to work on, fingers unthinkingly tapping along to the electronic beat. She CTRL+O'd an after-action report Fisher had filed, hoping to find some insight into the algorithm's operation that she'd overlooked before.
Some part of her brain realized she could still smell Sam's cologne.
[A/N: This work was originally posted on AO3 on September 16, 2017. If you enjoyed this, please feel free to check me out on AO3 under the username Liara_90, where you can find over a hundred more stories from me, because I'm bad at cross-posting. And feel free to connect with me on reddit, Tumblr, or MyAnimeList, where I use the "pvoberstein" username.]