Tides of Change

A/N: I had promised to get the sequel to Debate out, and I have made some progress on it, but while reading Zettel's Burying Dirt there was a section referencing the tides in correlation to Sarah's emotions. This story has nothing to do with that tale, but the symbolism stuck with me. This is the result. It's a short AU story (probably around 30k words). There is no Intersect, there is some fluff, and some angst (although it's mostly in retrospection).

Enjoy.

DAY ZERO

The tide had gone out. Waves of despair had battered Sarah as she struggled emotionally in the aftermath of the Budapest mission. Although Graham had assured her that Ryker was rogue, his focus on the whereabouts of the baby convinced Sarah that Graham wasn't above securing the infant's fortune in order to finance black operations that wouldn't pass muster with either Congress or the NCA.

As she had fought her way through the manor, Sarah had encountered more mafioso than expected. More blood on the walls more blood on her hands. She was sure, with a soul crushing realization, that the bloodstains on her were permanent. She had battled evil, but the fight had left scars on her psyche. She knew that she was doing good. The dead eastern European thugs were no choir boys. The despots, human smugglers, weapons runners were responsible for countless atrocities, repugnant to human nature.

But she was starting to fear that she had stared into the abyss one to many times, had seen herself staring back out of the abyss. But then she had seen the baby in the house, realized Ryker's true goal. Realized her true mission going forward. Not for the CIA, but for herself and more importantly, for the innocent child. Her mission in life, not in her job.

Following the mission, Graham had expressed surprise at her failure to secure the "package", suspicious over Sarah refusing to use the phrase "package" instead of "baby" or "infant". Her confrontational tone had likely made him wonder if she was still unwaveringly loyal to him. She wouldn't be the first agent to have outlived her usefulness to him, to need to be discretely disposed of. But she was also unparalleled in her skills, his most effective and most feared weapon. His Ice Queen.

But even the all powerful Langston Graham had to contend with the monolith that was the Federal bureaucracy. The CIA's Inspector General's office had discovered that Sarah Walker had not used mandatory leave in the past three years (even if they were unaware of the missions undertaken under names other than Sarah Walker). So she now had two weeks of mandatory leave, where she would face the wrath of bureaucracy if she attempted to set foot in Langley.

Graham neither wanted nor needed the IG's office to dig too deeply into the career of Sarah Walker, so he had begrudgingly acceded to the demand. Although he had intimated to Sarah that it was more of a suspension in deed rather than name. But Sarah hadn't cared, although she had channeled the Ice Queen long enough during her meeting with Graham that he had no clue of the thoughts rattling around behind those glacial eyes.

DAY ONE

Sarah had grabbed a duffle bag of clothes and some spending money out of the physical space that bore the title of her apartment (certainly never took on the feel of a home), and pointed her Porsche west. A cross-country drive to LA would allow her to get a change of scenery and a chance to assemble her thoughts on what she hoped for in the future. The cash allowed her to go off of the grid for a bit, although once in LA the traffic cameras would record her car and her likeness. But it would keep Graham guessing for a couple of days.

LA meant reconnecting with Carina, fine dining and the poshest of nightclubs. But it was also temptingly close to San Diego, a chance to see her mom and the baby. To assure herself that they were safe and happy. The pull to stay behind with her mother to help with Molly, as Emma had chosen to call her, had been surprisingly strong. But Sarah knew that she had needed to return to the CIA, to find out about Ryker, to figure out about Graham. But she would be close by. Temptation.

Carina was out when Sarah had pulled into town, apparently setting the hook to reel in a drug cartel financier. So Sarah had gotten a room at Maison 23 (under an identity that the CIA was unaware of-she was Jack Burton's daughter and the CIA's Ice Queen after all). But no sooner had she collapsed into the too comfortable bed had she discovered that her cell phone was acting up. As it served as an emergency contact node for her mother, Sarah would not risk missing a call. While she could have taken it to a local CIA substation to have the tech guru there fix whatever was wrong with it, not only would she have had to deal with the desk jockeys there fawning over an actual field agent (and the infamous Ice Queen at that), but it would get back to Graham-and she couldn't afford the risk of him instructing the tech team to put some tracking software on the phone.

A check with the concierge revealed that there was a Buy More nearby in Burbank, with a glowing recommendation for the services of the Nerd Herd supervisor, Chuck. Sarah had bit back a laugh at both the names "Nerd Herd" and "Chuck". As long as her phone was fixed- and without CIA involvement- she could survive a geeky retail encounter.

Given the unseasonably cool weather, Sarah threw on her tan leather jacket, topped off with a reddish purple hat to not only keep her head warm, but to make facial recognition more difficult for any surveillance cameras. With any luck, she would be able to get her phone fixed and get back to her hotel to see what kind of a workout she could get in their gym.

Chuck sat at the Nerd Herd desk, hunched over while working on the shattered screen of some kid's tablet. His posture wasn't due to his work, but rather the fact that he'd woken up feeling like an extra from the set of Groundhog Day, going through the same motions day after day after day. His bad mood on waking up had triggered the memory of the day when he had lost his mojo back at Stanford.

Despite his lousy mood, he had resolved to go into work, push through to get to the end of his shift so that he could get home to work on his software. He didn't want to be trapped in the endless circle of BuyMore and gaming. He was so close to a breakthrough on latest idea. Last night he had had a dream about a different coding approach to what everyone in the industry was doing. He tried not to dwell on what it said about his life that he dreamt of coding. But his lousy mood had started in the morning when he had woken up to realize that he didn't remember the details of the novel approach.

With his frustration with himself renewed, Chuck tuned out the insanity, or was it inanity, that was the Buy More. Or at least the Burbank Buy More. The jerks at the Beverly Hills store were snobs, but not outright lunatics. He wasn't sure what Jeff and Lester were up to, but he could no longer find the motivation to keep those two from getting themselves fired. Lester and Jeff 's specialty was seemingly doing something next to nothing, but slightly different than the day before.

Without realizing it, Chuck started half-singing the lyrics that had been echoing through his mind all morning, "I turn my back and you're messing around….I think of you every night and day. You took my heart and you took my pride away…I hate myself for lov-"

"Dude! Stop, just stop," Morgan called out, rushing over to the Nerd Herd desk. "Seriously man? Joah Jett? At least don't sing that song. C'mon, it's been like a month since you've mentioned Satan's spawn. I thought you were making progress."

Chuck let out a groan, wishing that he could just wallow in mediocrity in peace for just a few minutes. But then he also knew that Morgan meant well, and history justified his concern with having Chuck sing that particular song. "Just a rough day, that's all. You can consider your good deed for the day done, Morgan." Unfortunately, although not surprisingly, Morgan didn't pick up on the hint to leave Chuck alone.

The truth was that Chuck was bored. It was midday, midweek and the Nerd Herd desk was surprisingly empty. Well, empty except for Morgan who was slouching against the desk in a way that just couldn't be comfortable. Chuck was mostly focused on the broken tablet when he saw Morgan jump to his feet.

"Woah!"

Chuck let out another groan, this one far more noticeable. Not this. I can't deal with Morgan regressing like this today. "Please Morgan. I just told you that I'm just having a rough day. So bad that I started singing Jill's song without realizing it. Please, please, please don't try to imitate Joey Lawrence again. I thought you were past your Blossom phase?"

Instead of being offended, Morgan, naturally, was sidetracked, "Hey, did you know that we got in Season 1 of 'Melissa & Joey'? I gotta take it home to rip it." By the end, Morgan was nodding his head, as though expecting Chuck to agree that not only was priacy a good idea, but that it was a good idea to have more copies of a short lived show floating around the world.

"Do I know?" Chuck's exasperation was clear to anyone in the store not named Morgan. "You were the one that added it to the manifest. Do you know what Big Mike will do if he sees that?"

Morgan snorted, "Big Mike's gonna read a shipping manifest? Nice one, Chuck."

Nodding out of resignation, Chuck conceded, "Ok, point. But..." He looked up to see a vision of beauty walking in underneath the exit sign. The beret atop her head made her blonde hair stand out like gold. Her eyes swept the store before locking onto his. His breath caught at the sight of her sapphire blue eyes staring into his

Suddenly the obsequious Harry Tang was invading her personal space. Chuck bit back a laugh at the look the mystery woman sent Tang's way, not afraid but not comfortable with his groveling attention. Chuck found himself wishing, for the first time ever, that he was near Harry so that he could have heard whatever it was that the woman said to him to dismiss him so thoroughly.

Morgan's attention was once again totally on their conversation and he had completely forgoten about the stunningly beautiful woman who had entered the store, "Besides, I didn't say 'woah' as in (doing a horrible Joey Lawrence imitation) 'woah'. I meant 'woah' as in 'stop the presses. Vicki Vale.'"

Sarah heard the tail end of the conversation as she approached the Nerd Herd desk, wondering whether the concierge at the hotel had been playing with her by sending her to this store. "That's from Batman, isn't it? Would you happen to be Chuck Bartowski? Don't worry, I'm not a process server here to serve you with a lawsuit." Her breath hitched at the end as she got swept into looking into his eyes from up close. There's a warmth that I didn't see when I first came in.

Despite the fact that his name was not Chuck Bartowski, Morgan spoke up, "Maybe you're a bounty hunter! Like Dog the Bounty Hunter. Except that you are a woman, so that would make you a..."

"Morgan," Chuck jumped in, his voice squeaky in his nervous desire to shut down Morgan's stream of consciousness before he insulted and would likely scare away the mystery woman. "Why would I need to worry about a bounty hunter? I've never been arrested, much less be out on bail. And she clearly looks nothing like Bobba Fett or Jango Fett for that matter." Chuck cringed at showing off that much nerd cred in front of the beautiful stranger. " Hey, I think a customer is about to buy that Melissa & Joey box set. You may want to hurry."

"So, by any chance are you Chuck?" Sarah asked as she watched the short bearded man in a green polo suddenly move faster than anyone in the store as he sprinted towards the DVD aisles. Please say yes. You are the only remotely normal looking person in this whole store-including the customers!

"I…am he. Chuck that is. Chuck is me, uh, is I," Chuck stammered before clamping his eyes shut. Not the first beautiful woman you've ever seen, Chuck. Bring it together before she gives up on this entire place as a lost cause. "That is to say, yes, I'm Chuck. How can I help you?"

Although he had left the question open ended, Sarah decided to interpret it as him asking for her name. "Sarah. Sarah Walker."

His grin was instantaneous, and infectious. His eyes as she had approached had been warm and inviting, then embarrassed at his tongue-tied response. She was glad to see them shinning warm and friendly once again. As she got closer, she could seek the flecks of green and gold in what had appeared to be regular brown eyes when she had spotted him on entering the store.

The eyes are the windows to the soul, or so the Sunday school teacher had tried to teach her during one of her father's longer term cons. Sarah's smile faltered a bit as she hoped that she was the exception that proved the rule, as she suddenly felt desperately strongly that she didn't want Chuck to see her soul after a lifetime of it being ravaged by her father's cons and the CIA missions.

Chuck watched as a friendly grin started to spread across Sarah's face, making her look all the more beautiful, before her eyes became hooded and the grin froze in place. He found himself desperately hoping to get that smile to return. The need to see her smile again was staggeringly strong, stronger than the need to breathe.

"So, Sarah, what is it that I can help you with today? And how did you know my name? Not that I mind you knowing my name. It's great that you do. Know my name that is. It's just, here's the thing. There is no way that I've met you before." Pretty sure that fifty years from now I would be able to describe every detail of you. Which sounds incredibly creepy. Hopefully you can't read minds.

Sarah felt a rush of warmth as Chuck rescued her from an awkward situation. "My phone is acting up, and the concierge at Maison 23 told me that there is no one better to fix it than you." Sarah felt a second rush of warmth as Chuck blushed at the praise she relayed. No feigned humility here. The real deal. She suspected that she would always get the real deal when it came to Chuck. "Besides, your name is also on your ID."

It was almost comical to watch as Chuck grabbed the ID attached to his pocket protector, flipping it so that he could see it. He then winced as though realizing that his question had been a little foolish, even though she had found it to be rather sweet.

It was a welcome change from her experiences with Bryce. They were supposed to be going on vacation to Cabo right about now. That was until their last mission together when Bryce had slept with yet another woman, claiming it was necessary for his cover. Sarah had pointed out that his cover was not James Bond. She had promptly finished the mission, before advising Graham that she would be working solo from there on out.

Of course, the next mission wound up being Budapest with Ryker. So my solo career hadn't worked out so well either.

As soon as Sarah started to slide her phone onto the desk, Chuck snapped it up, his relief at being able to focus on something other than conversation palatable. Sarah found it refreshing how freely Chuck expressed himself with his thoughts as easy to see as his deeds. She didn't think that Chuck would appreciate her laughing at how relieved he looked. Although a part of her had truly been enjoying their little tete a tete.

"Ah, the Intellicell," Chuck said with a relieved smile. "There's a small screw on the back that occasionally comes loose." He reached into a pocket to pull out a small screwdriver before setting to work. Moments later, he slid the phone back across the desk to her. "Good as new."

Sarah felt a little melancholy that the phone was fixed so quickly. She checked it, and true to his word, the phone was working perfectly. While the short, bald guy in the green shirt had been pestering, and the shorter, bearded guy in the green shirt who was talking to Chuck when she walked up seemed to not recognize the fact that the 90s were well and truly over, she had enjoyed chatting with Chuck. Normally she would want to escape this retail hell as quickly as possible, but today she was searching for a reason to prolong her time there.

"How much do I owe you, Chuck," Sarah said finally, drawing a blank on an excuse to keep talking with him. Small talk with a non-mark is not a strong suit of Sarah Walker, as it turns out, she acknowledged to herself.

Chuck's response was a smile that seemed tinged with sadness, "Oh, no charge. It was a simple fix. Buut-" He trailed off deliberately, waiting for Sarah's reaction. After a small, somewhat shy grin from her he continued, "The Intellicell is pretty dated, technology-wise. If you'd like to upgrade, we do carry the latest iPhones."

"Looking to get a commission out of me there Chuck?" Sarah asked with a laugh.

"Oh, no. I don't do sales, so I wouldn't be making any money off of you. I just thought that you might like to have something a little faster, stronger…"

Sarah shot him a smirk to ensure that he didn't take offense at her words, "See me as the Bionic Woman, do you Chuck?"

Chuck's eyes grew wide and out of focus. Looks like he didn't see me that way…until I suggested it. Guess that he's got a thing for female superheroes.

"Maybe next time," Sarah said a bit sadly. "Thanks." With a backwards glance, she headed out of the store, with Chuck watching her every move with a slight wave good-bye.

A/N 2: As is the case with most introductory chapters, there is a lot of setting the stage, but not much in the way of action. Hopefully you found it interesting enough to tune in when Chapter 2 drops.