A/N: First, a very big thanks to all who've read the first chapter of Second Chances. And an especially big thanks to all those who also took the time to review. Your response has been very gratifying, even a bit overwhelming. It seems many of you like the canonish AU of this tale.
It will stay glum for a while yet, but there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Trust me.
Don't own Chuck, et al.
—
SECOND CHANCES
Chapter Two: Barely Breathing
The plane is a little shabby, not so much dirty or poorly maintained, rather showing the nicks and bruises of a life given in service to the CIA. Nearing, if Sarah had to guess, the end of its usefulness.
How appropriate.
...
Sarah has just seated herself when the somewhat bored looking co-pilot tells her they'd just received notice that Langley is sending along another passenger. The flight will be delayed for approximately thirty minutes.
She wonders if they're holding the plane for an agent being sent on some sort of last minute, urgent mission. Something with purpose, unlike the make-work she's been assigned. Maybe it'll be someone she knows, perhaps even worked with.
Hopefully not.
…
Thankfully, it turns out to be someone she's unfamiliar with. An older woman with glasses, dowdily dressed, carrying a briefcase and laptop bag. Sarah's first uncharitable thought is that the woman perfectly fits the stereotype of an accountant, likely being sent out to audit some CIA substation or such.
It seems she hasn't forgotten her father's lessons (or the CIA's, for that matter) on how to read people for, after exchanging names, the woman buries her head in the spreadsheets displayed on her laptop.
Which is just as well, as Sarah has no desire to engage in meaningless small talk (or even worse, hear about various accountancy procedures), for the five and a half hours (or maybe longer, if the plane's engines were as tired as the rest of it) it'll take to reach Burbank.
Instead, she concentrates on the information package that had been left for her.
She sees the Director has included the same background file that Graham had provided that night, but she just skims over it. Despite the trauma of the accident, she still remembers the salient points.
Charles Irving Bartowski. Goes by Chuck.
He'd be twenty-eight years old now.
Abandoned by his mother first, then, a few years later, by his father. Current whereabouts of parents unknown.
Raised by his older sister, Eleanor Faye Bartowski (She might be a married by now. There'd been a note about a boyfriend, Devon Woodcomb.) since his early teens.
Scholarship to Stanford, but expelled for cheating, instigated by his roommate, Bryce Freaking Larkin. (Which had told Sarah at the time that it was probably a setup. She still believes that, but has no idea out why it'd been done.)
Dumped by his girlfriend, Jill Roberts, at the same time
Has worked at the Burbank Buy More since returning home. Around seven years now.
Best friend name of Morgan Grimes. Fellow employee.
Avid video gamer. Comic book reader. Pop culture junkie.
She remembers how she'd mentally added boy-in-a-man loser to his description. Pushed around by life, unfairly dumped on, admittedly, but seemingly unwilling or unable to fight back.
After briefly wondering if meeting the man face-to-face will do anything to modify her opinion, she moves on, tackling the remaining bulk of the information.
But she has one last thought before mentally closing the book on Charles Bartowski.
God, I hope he's not going to be a whiner, crying on my shoulder about how badly life has treated him. I'll just have to make sure I keep my distance and not let myself get dragged into his pitiful life.
She'd opens the next file folder.
Got enough crap of my own to deal with.
...
They're still an hour from their destination when Sarah turns the last page. She stares through the scratched window, mulling over what she's just read.
Astounding.
That was the word the Director had used last night to describe the exploits of "Team Forrest", and Sarah couldn't agree more.
For the first eighteen months or so, they'd been virtually unstoppable. Arms dealers, drug kingpins, hardened spies, Fulcrum agents; all had fallen, one after the other, as a result of the team's actions. Monstrous, far reaching plots had been foiled. Untold numbers of lives had been saved.
It was a truly remarkable record. One that, while she could appreciate the magnitude of what had been accomplished, had only served to reawaken Sarah's slumbering anger.
And truth be told, one that also crystallized an incipient jealously.
Damn. Damn. Damn. I could've...no, should've been part of that team. It was supposed to be my assignment. Not Forrest's.
She shakes her head, the frustration she's worked so hard to contain once again threatening to boil over. The past few hours have given her a new-found, bitter appreciation of just how much the heedless actions of that young man had taken from her. She barely avoids cursing out loud, is only restrained by the presence of her fellow traveler.
And now all I get to be is a babysitter. Sent to watch over a burnout and close down the operation.
She drags her mind back, tries to focus on the here and now, telling herself that dwelling on what might have been will do absolutely no good.
OK. Concentrate. What else did you learn from the file, Sarah?
Early on, Sarah had recognized that official reports often hid but, paradoxically enough, simultaneously revealed details about the author of such documents. On the occasions where she'd later read over some of her own after-action accounts, she'd seen in her own words just how isolated, how lonely, she'd felt while carrying out Graham's directives. How her longing for some sort of real connection was growing, starting to crowd out her hitherto fore held belief that she could do it all on her own, and, at the same time, eroding her conviction that what she was doing was good and just.
It had been a wonder to her that none of the psych team had seen what she'd seen. If they had, it's almost certain they would've pulled her from the kind of missions she specialized in.
(Later on, of course, she'd come to realize that the doctors had been well aware of what was happening to her, but Graham had simply ignored their recommendations. He wasn't about to withdraw his most potent weapon from the battlefield.)
Given this ability to read between the lines, Sarah had learned quite a bit about "Team Forrest."
First of all, even the name had told her quite a bit.
Agent Forrest had, right from the first moment, slyly, and with apparent casualness, always referred to the group by that name, staking her claim as the prime mover and shaker behind its accomplishments.
Major Casey, on the other hand, had never referred to it by such a title, had, in fact, only referred to it once as anything else but simply "the team". The only exception had occurred in the report after a mission involving the Major's former sensei, where Casey had referred to it (perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not), as "Team Bartowski."
With two years condensed into a few hundred pages, it'd been interesting to see how the tenor of the reports had diverged as time went on. Initially, Forrest and Casey had, with the exception of whether the Intersect should be placed in a bunker or not, agreed on how matters should be conducted. It was obvious they both concurred that the personal feelings of the Intersect, the burdens that it brought to his life, must, of necessity, assume second place. Clearly, national security had taken precedence.
That hadn't surprised Sarah, knowing what she did of the two agent's similar personalities.
But as time went along, Sarah could see that things had gradually started to change, at least on Casey's part. While Forrest continued to do everything by the book, the Major's reports started to show more and more concern for the Intersect's struggles. After the first six months or so, Casey had stopped referring to the man by that impersonal title, more often than not calling him Bartowski, even once or twice using Chuck instead.
The reports were even more dissimilar in how the two agents described Mr. Bartowski's contributions to the success of the team.
If one had only read Forrest's accounts, you would have come away with the impression that the positive results had come about despite the Intersect's involvement, not because of it. That he was a bumbling fool, and it was, primarily, only the quick and decisive actions of Agent Forrest that that enabled them to accomplish what they had.
On the other hand, Major Casey had been, if not effusive, at least not overly stinting in his praise of Bartowski's actions. While acknowledging the man was completely untrained for the role that had been inflicted upon him, Casey had made it clear that it was acting upon the man's flashes that had led the majority of their successes. The Major had acknowledged that Bartowski's actions were often foolhardy, but, at the same time, had hinted he'd found many of those same actions had displayed a high degree of bravery.
As report succeeded report, Sarah had sensed a growing acrimony, an increasing divisiveness between the two agents. Disagreements on how operations were carried out became common. Thinly disguised little snipes at each other's respective roles and abilities started to pop up on both sides, but especially from Forrest.
Eventually, their deep-seated and obvious discord reached the point where Sarah wondered how the team had ever managed to function at all, let alone so successfully.
As the director had mentioned, the squabbling came to a head about six months ago.
Forrest had brought forward, forcefully, the bunker idea once more, pointing to the Intersect's increasingly sporadic output. She'd reasoned that this was due to being overly distracted by his family and friends and his job at the Buy More.
Casey had directly contradicted her, instead stating that Forrest had pushed too hard, making constant demands upon Bartowski's limited free time. The Major had shot back that it was only his connections with his "real life" that had allowed him to function as well as he'd done. Then he'd unequivocally stated that Bartowski needed a break, not more pressure.
In the end, a compromise had been reached, and like most compromises, neither side came away completely satisfied. No bunker for the Intersect, but little respite for Bartowski, either.
That government wasn't about let a resource of such potential value lie fallow.
And Charles Irving Bartowski, the human being at the center of the bureaucratic tug-of-war had paid the physical and mental price. A month ago, he'd suffered a collapse, a breakdown of sorts. It wasn't well described in the reports, but the outcome was very clear.
The Intersect had ceased to function.
Completely, and apparently, considering all the unsuccessful efforts that had been put forth to reactivate it, permanently.
The Golden Goose had been killed by greed once again.
Forrest had laid the blame squarely on the asset, accusing him of deliberately holding back. Her undertone gave the impression that she felt it was a personal affront to her.
Casey's, "I told you so," had leapt off the page, even though it hadn't been stated in so many words.
So that's where matters stood at the moment.
A team that no longer has any basis for its continued existence.
A man who's been pushed beyond his limits and then shunted aside. Deemed as being of no further value to the powers that be.
Sarah feels a wave of empathy for the man she's never met.
And she's gained respect for him, as well. He'd stood up for himself, refused to be separated from his friends and family, despite what she imagines to have been an immense amount of pressure. And all this while trying to find his way in a world he'd been so callously and unexpectedly thrown into.
Casey had implied he was courageous. And that's saying something from an ex-Marine like the Major.
Clearly, either the initial conclusions she'd made from his file had been way off-base, or the man had risen to the challenge. Probably a bit of both.
People do change, Sarah.
This realization only serves to further remind her that she's not the same woman who'd been so dismissive of Charles Bartowski and the mission she'd been assigned two years ago.
It had seemed so simple. Get in. Retrieve the data. Get out.
She'd successfully accomplished similar assignments a number of times before, often while facing the threat of unrestrained violence had she been detected. And, even on occasion, dodging gunfire when things hadn't gone as smoothly as planned. Comparatively, the Bartowski mission would've been a breeze.
But that's only because she was so different back then. Disillusioned, yes. Embittered, certainly. But at the same time supremely confident in herself and her abilities.
That Sarah Walker always got the job done.
What were the words of that old song?
We'd lead the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
The accident had not only shattered her leg. It'd shattered her self-assurance as well.
And while the leg had healed, the damage to her psyche remained, in so many ways, an open, suppurating wound.
The bitterness and disillusionment remain, but the confidence has fled, leaving her unsure, hesitant. A pale imitation of whom she once was.
As the plane begins its descent, she stares out the window once more, thinking of the mission ahead of her.
It should a be piece of cake. Easy-peasey. Something even an agent fresh from the Farm could handle.
She catches her reflection. Sees the doubt in her eyes.
Maybe they're right. Maybe this is all I'm good for.
Another line from that song comes back to her.
We lost our starry notions on the way.
...
Stepping off the plane's short flight of stairs, she grabs the suitcase waiting for her on the tarmac. After extending the handle, she tows it behind her as he walks toward the small building the CIA maintains as a check-in for personnel arriving in and departing from LA.
She stops at the door, hits the buzzer, then flashes her ID in front of the eye-level camera. The door clicks open and she steps through the entrance into a drab looking office, painted in some sort of sickly institutional green.
There's a perky, young brunette standing behind the counter smiling at her.
"Agent Walker, we've been expecting you. My name is Samantha."
Sarah manages to keep her expression neutral, even though the coincidence catches her off guard.
Samantha looks down at her terminal. Frowns for a moment.
"We're also expecting an Agnes Gebhardt. Is she coming as well?"
Sarah tilts her head toward the business jet parked in its spot.
"She's still on board."
When Sarah had walked past her, the woman hadn't even noticed Sarah's nod, her eyes glued to the laptop screen.
The young woman looks outside, seems a little confused. "I guess she'll be along soon."
"I expect."
Sarah pauses, expecting the young woman to get on with the business of signing her in and giving her the car she'd requested.
Sarah raises an eyebrow. Taps her foot.
Samantha finally clues in.
"Sorry, Agent Walker." She pushes a clipboard towards Sarah. She points. "Just sign here...and here...and here. And initial there," she chirps, "and we'll have you on your way."
Even after a year of pushing paper, Sarah's not quite used to this level of bureaucracy, at least not on an assignment. On the vast majority of her missions, paper trails, of any sort, had not existed. Cars, weapons, whenever she'd required them, had simply been provided to her, no questions asked, often handed off silently in some darkened alley.
She finishes the last of her paperwork. Samantha hands her the keys, a ray of the bright afternoon sun glinting off them momentarily.
"Your car's right through that door." She points over her shoulder. "It's the gray Ford Explorer." She pauses. "Were you told that we have a Porsche? It's usually used for deep cover missions, but it's available right now."
"Yes."
"That's the one I would've chosen. It's pretty sweet." A dreamy look crosses Samantha's face. "Sometimes, I imagine I'm an agent driving it on a mission, tearing down the coast highway, leaving the bad guys in my dust."
Seeing Sarah's stone faced response, the young woman catches herself, looks a little embarrassed.
"Sorry, Agent Walker. I guess stuff like that would be old hat for you."
Yes, except that, usually, I was the one chasing, not being chased.
She says nothing out loud.
Clearly unsure how to deal with the taciturn woman standing in front of her, Samantha is saved by the bell, or more precisely, the buzzer. It seems the accountant is ready to check in.
Relieved, she blurts out, "Thank you, Agent Walker. I'll buzz you out the back. Hope you have a good mission. Bye."
...
After depositing her suitcase in the back, Sarah slams the hatch shut with a little more force than necessary.
It's warm, so after opening the door, she slips off her brown leather coat and tosses it, along with her purse, onto the passenger seat. She sits, then latches the seatbelt.
She reaches up to adjust the rear view mirror, but stops as she sees her reflection. The scene with Samantha has irritated and unsettled her.
Was I ever that young, that foolish? Willing to open up to perfect stranger like that?
Sarah searches her mind, honestly unable to answer her own question. It seems to her that, even as a child, she'd always been old, serious. Careful to hoard her private thoughts or dreams. Hugging them to herself on those sleepless nights.
Except when it was part of her cover. Then she could chat away, seemingly a sharer. But of course, she gave away nothing real, just the history she'd been provided with or the things she made up on the spot in order to get close to her mark.
Samantha. When's the last time someone called me that?
Again, she's unable to come up with a firm answer.
Maybe my mom, when I was eight?
Her father has always told her she had to live the person she was pretending to be. Whether she was Katie or Rebecca, or any one of a dozen other people, she was to answer to that name. He'd test her from time to time, blurting out her name-de-jour to gauge her response, making sure that it was natural, spontaneous.
When he wasn't doing that, he'd addressed her by the unspecific "Darlin'", to the point, that to this day, Sarah is unsure if he even remembered who she really was or simply chose to ignore what had been.
She shakes her head, then starts the car. Putting it in reverse, her eyes are drawn to the screen displaying the image from the backup camera. She sees, parked thirty feet behind her, the black Porsche she'd worked so hard to avoid looking at.
She hits the brakes.
She'd loved her car.
Everything else, her apartment, her clothes, her weapons, had either been provided for her or purchased on her expense account.
In a sense, all of it belonged to the CIA.
But the Porsche she'd bought from her own funds. Not that she could've afforded a brand new one, even though most of her wages went into the bank.
No, Carina had put her on to a DEA auction. The car had belonged to a notorious cartel leader that Carina had helped bring down.
When Carina had told her about the 911, Sarah had, at first, scoffed, replying she didn't need anything so pretentious. She was quite content with the ubiquitous sedan provided by the Company. After all, she was hardly ever in D.C. in any case, so why tie up her funds with such an extravagance?
Undeterred, Carina had insisted that Sarah accompany her to the auction to be held in Florida, actually on the former grounds of the now-imprisoned drug lord.
When Sarah had seen the car, she'd immediately fallen for it. She'd wondered if the feeling was anything like the love at first sight thing she'd read about in books when she was younger.
Carina had seen her reaction, kidded her about it. Sarah had blushed, changed the subject, protesting that it would surely go for much more than she was willing to spend.
Carina had winked and told her not to worry, that she'd taken care of it.
Sarah was never exactly sure what Carina had done, but judging by the looks that had passed between her friend and the auctioneer, she'd had a pretty good idea.
In the end, she paid much less than the car's worth, a figure that, while it had stretched her budget, hadn't broken it.
The drive back to D.C. had been unexpectedly glorious.
Carina had gone, off on another mission somewhere, so she'd had the car, and time, to herself. Five whole days before she had to report in. The longest break between missions in recent memory.
She could've traveled the thousand miles on the I-95 had she chosen to, been back in D.C. in much less than a day. But she hadn't, instead, taking the road less traveled, zig-zagging back and forth, actually stopping and looking at places and sights that caught her fancy.
She'd dawdled over coffee each morning. Something she couldn't remember having ever done before.
She'd stopped in small towns, asked the locals where she could get a good cheeseburger. The men, old and young, seemed to be quite willing to pass on their recommendations at length.
One afternoon she'd found herself in an Auburn University campus coffee shop, overhearing a conversation between two young students and their bespectacled, bewhiskered professor. He'd expounded on Wittgenstein and the limits of language. She'd been fascinated, even though she'd only picked up about half of it.
She'd drifted from there towards the coast, taking her time before eventually winding up in Savannah, which she'd liked very much.
That wasn't to say she hadn't pushed the car at least a few times each day, laughing joyously as she felt the wind tear at her hair.
She'd even found herself singing along with the radio without consciously realizing it. But even after she'd caught herself, she hadn't stopped.
Finally, for maybe the first time in her life, she'd had something that was hers, a place (albeit a cramped, mobile one) that she could call her own. One that allowed her to go where she wanted, when she wanted. To control her own direction. At least for those brief times that she could call her own.
Graham hadn't been happy with his Enforcer's symbol of independence, especially one she'd insisted it was to be kept free from tracking or surveillance devices. However, apparently sensing her intransigence on the subject, he'd wisely not pressed the matter.
But now, of course, the broken, bent corpse of her Porsche is sitting in some scrap yard, assuming it hasn't already been crushed and melted down.
The insurance settlement had been generous. She'd been given much more than she'd paid, more than enough to find a good used replacement.
She'd never done so. For the first year after the accident, she'd focused on her recovery, wondering if, despite the best efforts of her surgeons and physical therapists, she'd ever get back to the level of mobility she'd previously enjoyed.
Then when she had recovered, she'd returned to find her mentor gone, her stock with the Company at its lowest ebb.
A virtual pariah.
Sarah Walker had been dealt a sharp, salutary lesson.
You can't go back again.
After that, she'd let the idea of buying another 911 languish, had accepted the dreary, gray government-issue sedan for her dreary, gray government life.
She gives herself a shake, tries to dispel the memories she's worked so hard to eradicate.
One year, just hold on for another 365 days.
She pulls her eyes away from the screen, finishes backing up, and then, putting the Explorer in drive, exits the parking lot, leaving Samantha and the Porsche behind her.
Time to go and talk with Bartowski's handlers.
TBC
—A/N: Still a bit of a downer, I know. Next chapter we'll meet Chuck's handlers, who may not be quite the way we remember them from Canon.