It was Monday morning.

Yet another Monday when Sarah had to go sit in a goddamn office chair at a goddamn desk in a goddamn office in a goddamn federal building in this goddamn city! She had a nicer goddamn office when she was a goddamn deep-cover operative working out of goddamn Langley!

"I counted eight 'goddamns' there," Chuck quipped, as she poured her goddamn decaf coffee down the goddamn sink. She couldn't stand the goddamn stuff anymore. There was no goddamn caffeine, so what was the goddamn point?

With a dirty look at Chuck, she whirled and stormed out the kitchen door, into the garage. She yanked open the door of her Porsche, and tried to slide behind the wheel. Tried, and failed.

"No," she hissed. "NO!"

She reached down, lifted the bar under the seat to slide it back – but the seat was back as far as it would go. She tilted the wheel up as far as it would go – but it was no use. Her six-and-a-half-months-pregnant-with-twins self just wasn't going to fit in the Porsche.

"What the fuck!" she wailed in protest. "I fit on Friday!"

Just as she was about to mercilessly beat the helpless 911, Chuck walked through the garage door, having heard her from the kitchen. He looked at her for a moment, and wisely, said nothing, except, "Do you want to take my car to work?"

"No!" she snapped. "I want to drive my goddamn Porsche!"

But even as she pouted, she realized that it was hopeless. She wouldn't be driving the Porsche again until after she gave birth – and even then, who knew how much. It was like Chuck had said two months beforehand – there would be no fitting two carseats in the Porsche.

Chuck walked around the front end of his Dodge to her. Hugging her as closely as he could with the two not-quite-infants growing between them, he rubbed her back gently. She rested her head on his shoulder and let tears of frustration come out and soak his shoulder.

After a moment, he quietly said, "You keep that up much longer and I'm going to have to go change my shirt." She couldn't help but laugh at that.

He stepped back. "Listen," he said. "I know you're frustrated. But I still love you. I think you're beautiful. You're giving life to our two beautiful children. And no stupid German car will ever change that."

She smiled. "But you're still going to enjoy driving my stupid German car to work, aren't you?"

He shrugged. "Well, I suppose I can suffer through it…"

Laughing, she punched him in the shoulder, and then switched keys, handing him the keys to her precious Porsche and taking the keys to his stupid station wagon. He took the keys to the Porsche like a precious jewel – but he treated it like anything but.

He started the 911 up, backed out of the driveway WAY too quickly, and then laid a strip of rubber twenty feet long as he accelerated down Saint Clair Avenue. Sarah gritted her teeth. "We'll be having a little talk about THAT later," she muttered to herself.

She walked around the front of the Magnum, unlocked it, and climbed into the driver's seat. Plenty of room in here. Hell, it was probably the better option for her to be driving. It was bigger, it had more safety options, and it scored a HELL of a lot better in federal highway tests than her Porsche EVER had. Besides that, in the unlikely event that one of her old enemies came looking for her, it had a 372 cubic inch Hemi V-8 under the hood which could crank out 425 horsepower. If it really came down to it.

As she was backing the Beast out of the garage though, a thought occurred to her – she really DIDN'T want to go to work today. So, she called the CIA office at the downtown federal building and told them that she was sick. Since she was six and a half months pregnant, they didn't say a single word.

Sarah started driving. She didn't know where she was going, but pretty quickly, found herself on the 101, headed toward downtown Los Angeles. Out of force of habit, she got off at Alvarado, and before she realized it, found herself turning off of Sunset onto Laveta Terrace – headed toward Ellie and Devin's apartment.

She pulled the Magnum to a stop in front of the apartment complex, got out, and headed toward Ellie's apartment. As she crossed the courtyard, John Casey stepped out of his apartment. Despite his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, he was still assigned to Team Chuck, and he was still working at the Buy More for his cover.

"Well, well," he sniggered, as Sarah crossed the courtyard. "Look out, wide load coming through!"

At no time in his life could Casey have said something that would be more the wrong thing than that. Sarah, moving surprisingly quickly for her stage of pregnancy, stepped toward him, whipping out her stun gun.

Within three seconds of his ill-advised joke, the NSA agent was lying on the ground, twitching. He looked up at Sarah.

"Sorry…" he whispered.

"I will END you," she grated back at him, holstering her stun gun and giving him a swift kick to the side. She watched in satisfaction as he rolled over on that side, clutching it in pain.

Sarah walked the last few steps to Ellie's apartment, and rang the doorbell. A moment later, a bleary-eyed Ellie Woodcomb, no makeup on, hair still mussed from sleep, and a belly almost as big as Sarah's, answered the door.

"Well, if it isn't my comrade in gestation," Ellie said sleepily. "Good morning, or maybe just morning, since I can't drink coffee anymore."

"Isn't it a bitch?" Sarah grumbled in agreement, entering the apartment. As she stepped in, Ellie looked out into the courtyard.

"John? Are you okay?"

Casey, picking himself up off the pavement, didn't trust himself to say anything, and just waved.

Ellie turned around and shut the door, inviting Sarah to take a seat in the living room. "So, what brings you here this morning?"

"I can't fit in my Porsche anymore," Sarah complained. "It's not fair. I paid good money – okay, the CIA paid good money for it, and now your brother's out zipping around in it, while I'm driving around in a station wagon."

"I know how you feel," Ellie commiserated. "Devin insisted that we switch cars about a month ago. He said it was safer for me to be driving the Escape. I think he just wanted a crack at my G6."

"Men," Sarah said disgustedly. Ellie snorted in agreement.

They both fell silent, but after a minute, found that both their sets of eyes had wandered longingly to the wine rack that was strictly off-limits to them. "I've never had a craving for a drink at 9:30 in the morning before," Ellie said quietly.

"Yeah," Sarah agreed. "I'm about ready to be done with this."

"Do you ever wish it would be over, and the baby would just be out of you now?" Ellie asked.

"From time to time," Sarah admitted. "Usually at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, when they're having a boxing match."

"Oh, God, yes," Ellie said. "That's got to be horrible sometimes, with twins."

"Well, yes, and no," Sarah said. "I mean, yeah, I don't get as much sleep as I'd like, but still… every so often, just feeling them gently kick… there's just something about that."

"True," Ellie replied with a smile and a nod. Then she stood up to go to the kitchen for – something… and made the mistake of looking in the mirror as she did so.

"Oh God, I look like a monster!" she wailed.

"No, Ellie, you don't," Sarah said, carefully getting up to comfort the older woman. Then she caught a glimpse of Ellie in the mirror. With no makeup and bedhead, she really didn't look that great.

Then Sarah took a closer look at herself. "I look like a beach ball!" she moaned.

"Why, why, WHY do our bodies betray us like this?" Ellie groaned.

Sarah gritted her teeth. "It's times like this that I really, REALLY wish I could go to the shooting range."

"Can't," Ellie said. "The sounds can harm the babies."

"I know that," Sarah replied. "But still, I – wait a second."

She had just had a flash of inspiration. She pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

A moment later, a laconic voice answered. "Glendale Police. Anderson."

"Gilbert, this is Sarah Walker," she said.

"Agent Walker."

"Can you do me a favor, set up the paintball target range? Have it ready around, say 10:15?"

"Ten-four." And then he hung up.

Sarah looked at Ellie with a gleam in her eye. "Ellie, go get dressed. We're going to go take out some aggression."

At 10:10, the Dodge Magnum pulled into the parking lot of the Glendale Police Department, on Isabel Street just north of Broadway.

Sarah led Ellie inside. "I need to see Detective Anderson," she said to the sergeant on duty. "He's expecting me."

A few minutes later, Detective Gilbert Anderson, Glendale PD, was showing them back to the mock shooting range in the back of the station. "We use guns that fire paintballs with compressed air in here," he explained. "No noise to damage your babies, which is your concern, I assume?"

Sarah nodded. "Always treat them like real guns. Don't ever point them at each other, and don't point them anywhere but the ground unless you plan to fire them."

And with that, he slapped a Glock G31 into Ellie's hand and departed. "That's a .357 caliber gun," Sarah told her. "In a real life situation, you could put a cartridge in that that would kill a man with no problem whatsoever."

She could see the distaste on Ellie's face, as the doctor thought about the ramifications of that. "But, we're just firing harmless paintballs at metal targets," Sarah added hastily. Ellie still looked a little disgusted, but not as much as she had been.

Sarah turned to the gun rack, and selected her personal favorite – a Colt 1911A1. She slapped in a loaded clip, and made sure the CO2 cartridge was properly attached. Turning downrange, she hit the target button, and the target popped up. Sarah shot quickly, the paintball gun making odd little pops, and a second later, her clip was empty. She hit the button again, and the target approached them.

"Wow," Ellie said, clearly impressed at the eight pink dots on the target's heart and the one on its forehead.

"You give it a shot," Sarah said.

"Uh, okay," Ellie replied, not very sure of herself. Sarah hit the target button, and it popped up. Ellie fired, not as quickly or as surely as Sarah, but when Sarah brought the target downrange, it was clear that Ellie's aim was pretty good.

"Not bad," Sarah said approvingly, noticing that four of Ellie's shots had been inside the X-ring. "Let's do some more."

They both loaded another clip, and fired some more. This went on for about half an hour, with Ellie's aim markedly improving as they continued.

Then Sarah had an idea. Turning behind her, she picked up the range phone. "Gilbert," she said a moment later, "I need you to do me a favor. Load up surveillance photos of Charles Irving Bartowski and Devin Lawrence Woodcomb, and then project them on the targets – Bartowski on the left, Woodcomb on the right. Okay?"

She hung up the phone and turned back to Ellie. Ellie had a rather amused look on her face. "Target practice on our husbands?" she asked.

"Why not," Sarah replied. "It's their fault we're in this condition."

"Well, as a doctor, I should say it's both parties' faults equally," Ellie answered her, "but I think I'm gonna go with you and say it's his fault."

Sarah started laughing. She never realized just how much she enjoyed spending time with Ellie until now.

That's when the pictures of their husbands popped up on the targets. Ellie's eyes narrowed as she picked up the Glock, loaded a new clip, and advanced to the firing line. When Sarah reached the firing line, they looked at each other. Sarah nodded, and they both turned their faces forward.

Within three seconds, both of the women had emptied their clips. Sarah hit the button to bring the targets forward – and as they got closer, both women started laughing hysterically.

Chuck and Devin's crotches were covered in pink paint.