Disclaimer: I'm gonna play this disclaimer alittle differently than normal ones. To those of you reading this who read Chapter 2, Ex's and Oh's, before I edited it, an error on my behalf made my character, Cassie, sound like an Amazon. She's not. I overexagerated a bit, trying to make the likeness between Casey and Cassie obvious. It's fixed now, but I just wanted to clear that up. I guess she would be just alittle taller than Sarah, probably somewhere between Chuck and Casey's height.
Cassie knocked nervously at Chuck's door. Ellie answered. "Hi, Cass. Wow, you look nice, what's the occasion?" she asked, looking over Cassie, who had ditched her usual black Dickies, sneakers, t-shirt, and hoodie for a nicer blue camisole, black shrug, and ballet flats. "Well, me and Sarah are hanging out tonight, and I wanted to look halfway decent. What do you think? Did I pull of halfway decent?"
"Yes you look great. Come on in. She's not here yet, but Chuck and Morgan are in Chuck's room and John and Devon are in the dining room" Ellie told her, ushering her into the apartment.
Cassie joined Casey and Devon in the kitchen. Devon was trying to get Casey to go bungee jumping with him, and Casey looked minorly amused. When she walked in the room they stopped talking. Devon looked her over. "What's up, Cass? Got a hot date tonight?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do."
"Who's the lucky fellow?"
"Actually I'm going out with Sarah. Not in that sense, but still, I figured I should look nice."
"Awesome," he said.
"Great. Um, Ellie, I'm gonna go hang with the guys for alittle, if you don't mind." She showed herself down the hall to Chuck's room, knocking as she opened the door. "Hey Chuck, Morgan."
"Hey Cass. What's up?" they both replied, not looking up from their video game.
"Oh nothing much. Just hanging out before Sarah comes to pick me up for our hot date tonight." Morgan dropped his controller, and Chuck stared at her. "I thought that would get your attention. Relax Morgan, we're just hanging out as friends. Chuck, did Sarah say anything to you about us hanging out today? Any plans that she had or anything?"
"No, Cassie, I wasn't even aware of the fact that you two were going out tonight, so no, if she has any strange, sadistic plans for you, she failed to mention them to me."
"Okay then," she said as Ellie opened the door. "Chuck, Cassie, Sarah's here."
Chuck shut off the game and the three of them went out to the living room. When Sarah and Cassie met eyes, they smiled at each other, but Cassie's smile didn't extend to her eyes. Sarah, however, didn't seem to notice. "Hi Cassie. Are you ready to go?"
"Yes, I am. And you look very nice Sarah," she said, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Have you decided what you want to do tonight."
Sarah ignored the compliment right along with the sarcasm. Cassie was getting ready for whatever awaited her once she was alone with Sarah. She saw right through her disguise and knew instantly that Sarah wasn't really trying to make nice with her. "I'm not sure, I was thinking a movie, but we need to leave soon if we want to make the showing."
"Yeah OK, sounds good to me. See you guys later." She left with Sarah. Once they were in Sarah's car, Cassie asked "So, I know your not really trying to make nice, what do you really have planned for the evening?"
"What do you mean, Cassie? I really do want to be friends with you, start over, you know?"
Cassie just grunted in reply.
-------------------------------------------------
They stood in the outside line forever, trying to decide what movie to see. Sarah wanted to see P.S. I Love you or Juno, but Cassie said she didn't like chick flicks. Cassie wanted to see One Missed Call or Cloverfield, but Sarah didn't like horror movies. They finally, after what seemed like forever, settled on The Bucket List. When they went to buy the tickets though, they were sold out, so they ended up just hanging out at the mall. They wandered pointlessly, Cassie scoffing at the ridiculously priced outfits in the windows of all the stores Sarah stopped to look at, and Sarah snickered at the posters in the windows of the shops Cassie wanted to go in. Even when it came time for dinner, they disagreed on where to eat. Sarah wanted Chinese, Cassie wanted Mexican. Sarah wanted healthy, Cassie wanted good, all in all they had spent the better part of the night bickering back and forth like sisters. They finally hit Arby's, at roughly 9 o'clock. Sarah's phone rang during the uncomfortable silent dinner, Cassie caught a glimpse of the caller ID before Sarah snatched it off the table and silenced it.
"I didn't realize you and Casey were friends."
"We're not, per se."
"Care to elaborate?"
"Not really"
"OK, Fine" Cassie said snappily, returning the dinner to an awkward silence.
They left not long afterwards. But Sarah, instead of leading Cassie back towards the car, she led her to the top deck of the near abandoned parking garage. Cassie laughed as they reached it. "Wow Agent Walker. I'm pretty amazed at how long it's taken you to get me alone. Well you've got me now. What are you going to do, kill me?"
"Who are you really and who do you work for?"
"Now you see this is no fun. Your interrogating me and actually expecting me to tell the truth, but you haven't hurt me once, I'm not tied up, and your not pointing the gun your hiding in you boot at me. Do you really think this is going to work? Well, truth be told Agent Walker, I kind of like you, so I'll tell the truth. My real name is Agent Cassandra Casey, better known as Casey Casey, and I work for the NSA."
Sarah moved reflexively for her gun. So did Cassie. "Relax, Agent Walker. I'm not here to hurt Chuck. I'm here to protect him. It wasn't him I was hiding from, it was you. In fact, Chuck already knows exactly who I am, so does Casey. You weren't told, neither was Director Graham, because the CIA has a prize on my head. They have since I was 5. I'm not here to hurt anybody."
"How am I supposed to believe that?"
"I don't know how to make you believe that. We could go back to Chuck's, he and Casey could tell you, but you can't tell Graham, he'll have me hunted, and you can't tell Beckman, because she'll pull me off the case."
