A/N: I've always been fascinated by how Sarah Walker's emotional state transformed over time on the show, as well as the dozens of incredible variants I've read on the FanFic site. I decided I wanted to put my own spin on the story of Sarah Walker's emotional awakening, so while this is clearly an AU story, I have retained a number of canon elements. This story already fully written, and is much simpler, shorter, and narrow in scope than my previous work, Orion Cyber Security Systems, which was admittedly a massive piece of work. And even though I wrote this one in a very different way, I really enjoyed working through the emotional aspects of how Sarah's transformation comes together.
This story has a mild T-rating for occasional coarse language, some adult themes, and some violence, but nothing too graphic.
As for the release schedule, I am hoping to release a chapter or two per week, as the chapters are fully complete and materially shorter than OCSS.
I hope you enjoy it, and favor me with following or reviewing. It's the only way I can know if the effort I've put into writing this is giving anyone any sort of joy.
Finally, my thanks go to Nevr for pre-reading and beta reading. Thanks Nev!
As usual, I don't own Chuck or profit from writing this story.
Chapter 1 – The Deep Dark Hole:
Sarah Walker slumped naked to the floor of the shower, hoping the water would somehow wash away the emptiness she felt deep inside her. She'd never had any sort of emotional breakdown after killing a man, especially when it was in self-defense. But this was different. She felt. She felt things she did not fully understand and was struggling to cope. It wasn't supposed to go this way, but then again, battle plans seldom survive first contact with the enemy, and she had to make a split second, life and death decision. She fired without hesitation, but dissecting the events of that afternoon, while completely logical and defensible, gave her no comfort.
Bryce Larkin, her former partner and lover, had deserted her, then in a brazen act of treason, broke into the secure laboratory of the Director of National Intelligence, and stole a top secret piece of technology that would revolutionize the way the DNI would manage intelligence data. Larkin was on the run, and Langston Graham, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, had given Sarah the enviable assignment of tracking him down, and securing the top-secret data drive. He also made it clear that bringing Bryce Larkin in to face the consequences of his actions was not a mission objective. A clear implication that should Larkin meet his demise as Sarah was in the process of securing the data drive, there would be no repercussions.
Graham selected Sarah for this mission for two reasons. The first was that she knew Larkin better than anyone and was best positioned to figure out how to track him and secure the drive. The second reason was to validate Sarah Walker's commitment to the Agency and that she was in no way complicit in Larkin's treasonous actions. The meeting had been tense, with Sarah balancing equal parts of shock and outright anger at having been put in such a compromised position, first by Larkin, and then by her boss, Langston Graham.
It took Sarah a few days, but eventually Sarah managed to identify Larkin as he boarded a flight to Los Angeles. Graham was right. Larkin was a good spy and knew how to minimize his exposure to security cameras as it would be possible to use facial recognition to find him. But Sarah knew him. She knew how he walked as well as his tics and idiosyncrasies. Once she ID'd him, and the flight he was on, it was relatively easy to look for him once he landed at LAX. It was painstaking work, but she was able to track him through the airport to an Avis rental car counter, where he used unsanctioned false documents and credit cards to secure the rental. Once Larkin picked up the car, it was a relatively simple matter to use the rental car company's anti-theft GPS locator to track the car in real-time. Sarah got to LA less than twenty-four hours behind Larkin, and on the flight to LA had been studying the GPS tracking data to identify any patterns that may be relevant. She noticed that Larkin had done several drive bys of a commercial building in El Segundo. As soon as she landed, she was met by a local resource who handed her the keys to a gray Toyota Prius, a car that would blend into the Los Angeles landscape without screaming "government car" or undercover police vehicle.
Sarah opened up her laptop, and tracked him heading south on the 405 from Westwood. His current track was consistent with the route he used to get to the El Segundo location, and given that she was at LAX, which was closer to El Segundo, she decided to avoid trying to pick him up and follow him, choosing instead to get to the building first, find a good position to stake out the property and wait for his arrival. When she arrived, she did a quick drive by to see if there were any suspicious parked vehicles with men in them or box vans that might conceal a surveillance team. Satisfied there was no immediate threat, Sarah parked the car just around a corner, giving her a good view of the entrance, while maintaining some cover and distance from her objective. The building itself was a run-down vacant commercial building, four stories tall, and she noticed that the steel gate covering the front entrance was partially open. It looked like the kind of vacant building used by drug addicts, the homeless, or an underground rave party. She settled in to wait, pulling out her digital camera.
Thirty-two minutes later, Sarah saw the blue Chrysler 300 approach from the north slowly, drive around the block once, then park directly across the street. Sarah lifted her camera, zooming in with the telephoto lens to pick up Bryce Larkin's profile as he parked the car. He sat motionless, waiting for something, or someone. After a few minutes a black Escalade pulled to the front of the building, dropping off a tall man in a long dark coat. The man was facing the wrong way for the camera, but Sarah snapped several clear pictures of his silhouette as well as photos of the Escalade and its plates. She kept snapping as the man slipped into the building and the Escalade sped off.
Bryce Larkin sat in his car, watching the Escalade approach, stop, drop off its passenger, and move off. Once the escalade left, he waited for an additional two minutes before quickly exiting his vehicle, jogging casually across the street, and slipping into the building. Before slipping through the open gate, he took a moment to scan his immediate surroundings. Sarah had anticipated that he would do a quick three-hundred-and-sixty-degree scan before disappearing, and had promptly ducked down in the car, completely out of sight. She did a silent ten count, then peered up at the building entrance and the surrounding area to make sure she had not been made.
Sarah pulled out her Sig Sauer P229, checked to ensure the magazine was full, and chambered a round. She then checked her purse for the two additional magazines she carried, and slipped a hand down to her ankle to make sure her honed throwing knives were properly secured and positioned. She stowed her camera, did a quick three-hundred-and-sixty-degree visual sweep, and got out of her car, closing the door gently.
She quietly slipped inside the darkened building and looked to the elevator bank for any telltale signs of activity. No lights, no power. She scanned the graffiti covered lobby and saw staircase right next to the elevators. The door was slightly ajar, a possible sign of usage. She then spotted a second staircase at the far end of the lobby. Without back up, Sarah needed to make a decision quickly. She chose the near staircase, assuming both men would have used it, which would put her closer to them when she was ready to strike. Decision made, Sarah drew her Sig, and made her way to the stairs. Her soft soled Hi-Tec combat boots making virtually no sound as she took the stairs two at a time while keeping the Sig steady in front of her as she climbed.
At each landing, she would carefully put her ear to the door, listening for any unexpected sound or talk, followed by a quick visual check. As she approached the landing for the third floor, she gently placed her ear to the door and could hear two men speaking at some distance. She carefully cracked the door open and could see Bryce Larkin's back. He was speaking with the tall man in the long dark coat. Larkin's position obscured the face of the man he was speaking to, though it seemed clear the tall man was American by the way he spoke and his use of colorful American colloquialisms. Perhaps with a slight East coast accent. The two men seemed to be negotiating and neither had a weapon in hand so Sarah made her move, bursting into the hallway with her weapon up and ready.
"Freeze!" Sarah shouted as she took up a two handed Weaver stance less than twenty feet from where the two men stood. Larkin didn't move but his lack of movement made it impossible for Sarah to have a clear shot at the tall man, who spun and ran down the hall towards the secondary set of stairs at the far end of the hallway.
"Sarah, don't shoot. I'm going to explain everything, just please don't shoot." Larkin spoke clearly and confidently, slowly turning to face her as he lowered his hands. "This is a sanctioned operation. I was sent by Graham under deep cover to identify a mole who was trying to steel our tech. Sarah, put the gun down, you know you can trust me." Larkin started to give Sarah a confident smile when Sarah barked a sharp command.
"Don't you fucking move, Bryce. Don't do it. Do you understand?" Sarah was giving Larkin a glare that would have frozen water in its place, as the barrel of her Sig never wavered from its target. "Do you have the drive?" Sarah asked aggressively.
"I have it, Sarah, its right here in my back pocket. I'm going to take it out of my pocket and put it on the floor, OK? Just don't shoot Sarah, please. Let me give you the drive, then we can call Graham together, and once this mess is behind us maybe we could head down to Cabo and take a few days to reconnect….just us. Just like old times. What do you say, Sarah?" As Larkin spoke, he continued to move disregarding Sarah's order to stop, though his movement was deliberately slow.
"Bryce, Graham wants the drive, and doesn't give a shit if I bring you in alive or dead, so don't you fucking move another inch." Sarah growled in a voice that left no mistake as to her seriousness. That tone would have frozen most men, but Larkin was supremely confident in his powers of persuasion and seduction, and he was absolutely certain he could get Sarah to blink. He was getting his hand close to where it needed to be so he pressed his final gambit.
"Come on, Sarah, it's me. You know we are together. You know I love you, and deep down inside, you know you love me too. Please lower the gun and talk to me. We can sort all this out." Larkin caught a slight change in Sarah's eyes. He saw something in them that he registered as acquiescence, and he knew he had her. In the blink of an eye, he accelerated his turn, grabbed the Glock tucked into the back of his pants and allowed himself to drop towards the ground while raising his weapon to shoot.
Sarah's stance was firm and never wavered as Larkin made his pitch. She was keenly aware that he hadn't stopped moving as instructed, and was trying to seduce her into a momentary lapse in focus that he could use to his advantage. She registered each of his words as he spoke, with no reaction. Then he said something she wasn't expecting, something neither had ever uttered anywhere. He used the word "love." She knew it was all bullshit, and that he was trying to distract her, but she hoped she could bring him in peacefully. She knew they didn't love each other even remotely, but still, they had been partners, and she did not want to kill him if she could avoid it. But then she saw it. Larkin's lips moved a fraction of an inch. The start of a smirk, and his unconscious tell that said he knew he had won. That he had her. As his lips started to twitch into the smirk she hated with a passion, he moved to shoot, in a blur, spinning and dropping while reaching for his weapon.
Sarah did not hesitate. In a fraction of a second, she fired two rounds center mass and a third round in the center of Larkin's forehead. She held her Weaver stance for a few additional seconds after she watched his lifeless body fall backwards, and then suddenly felt the shock of having killed her ex-partner and occasional lover.
Sahar regained her situational awareness after only a few seconds of shock, doing a quick threat assessment to make sure the tall man did not return with armed support. Satisfied that Larkin's contact was long gone, she moved to Larkin's body and checked his pockets, finding the drive and extracting it. She then took a few steps back to a place where she had a clear view of the entire hallway and called Graham.
"Graham secure." Langston Graham answered the phone in his usual brusque manner.
"Walker secure. It's done. I have the drive and need a cleaner team to pick up Larkin's body." Sarah responded with no emotion in her voice. She then described the engagement and the missing accomplice, provided the address, and made arrangements to hand over the drive and the memory card from her camera to a CIA courier at LAX in two hours.
"Good job, Walker. Take the next week off and get yourself together. We have things to discuss when you get back to DC next week." Graham then closed the call without further comment.
Sarah looked at the drive, which was a shiny black box about the size of an 8-track cassette tape, dropped it into her purse, and casually made her way to her car without looking back. Two hours later, after authenticating the challenge and response codes with the courier, she handed him the package, and headed to the Fairmont Century Plaza, where she was currently sitting naked on the floor of the shower, desperately trying to reconcile the emptiness she felt deep inside. It wasn't so much that she had killed Larkin, it was more that while she did not love him, he was her partner and a part of her life. Now she really had no one. Sarah had not had contact with her father in almost a decade. He was currently serving the remainder of his sentence for many counts of fraud, conspiracy, and a dozen other charges in some prison somewhere in the US. She hadn't seen or spoken with her mother for even longer, and given the way she and her father ran out of town deserting her, she doubted any reconciliation with her mother was possible. And while none of this had ever bothered her before, for some reason, now it did. Profoundly. And she had no idea how to deal with it.
After about an hour, Sarah forced herself up and out of the shower. She wrapped herself in one of the hotel's heavy terrycloth robes, and sat on the bed, taking stock of her life and understanding that in some way, today was a turning point that required her to make a drastic change in direction. She decided to order room service, hoping that a proper meal would help fill the hole she felt inside. After dinner, she would go to bed early and shoot anyone who woke her up.