Sorry, I did it again, there a few more changes to School Daze to fill in holes to clarify a couple of points, but again nothing major, and again there are unpleasant topics and homosexuality portrayed so if this offends you, please don't read it.

Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.

Walker's opposition to the 'special' training and the reports from Bentley, the Farm and that first idiot about her development and performance on test missions made Graham decide to accelerate his plans for her. She was obviously capable of carrying out missions on her own, so he decided to start knocking those moral objections out of her before it was too late to in an effort to ensure that she'd do whatever he told her. Her fear for her mother had been enough to keep her under control so far, but if she told Bentley about that... that would be a problem, because Bentley knew enough about how things were done to convince her to demand proof that he had her mother, so he had to have her broken enough to ensure obedience before that happened.

Sarah started getting sent on solo missions on weekends, but she could hardly walk when she got back from the first couple of missions because Graham had set her up to be raped, and then released with the inconsequential 'intel' she'd been sent for once they were all done with her. Jane sat her down and made her listen to her after the second time this happened, firstly telling her to make him give her proof that he had her mother just as he'd surmised, but also explaining to her that unless the target had been identified as having proven on-going value that necessitated keeping them alive, Graham had no cause to do anything to her or her mother as long as she met the mission objectives. If that bastard wanted to send her on an agent's mission, agents' rules had to apply, and if he tried to argue that they didn't apply because it wasn't a real mission, she'd bring the bastard down for sending her in to be raped like that.

The next time she was being sent in like that, Sarah asked a few questions about the targets, and after Graham said that it was just what they had that was important, she killed everyone in the house when they went to start on her and walked out with the intel in less than an hour, leaving a total bloodbath behind her. When he started threatening that her mother would pay for what she'd done, she played the card that Jane had told her to play and demanded to see proof that he had her mother. He showed her carefully staged images of a woman who could be her mother but Sarah just rejected them, pointing out that none of these photos showed enough to prove that it was her mother or that he had her, then looked him in the eye and repeated what Jane had told her about the fact that unless the target was proven to be of high on-going value, an operative could not be penalised so long as they achieved the mission objectives. Graham scowled at her for a bit and then told her to get out.

Graham wished he could just get rid of Bentley, but the bitch had been canny enough to make sure she got an official record of their agreement before she started this assignment, and Walker's record so far showed that Bentley was doing a better job of training her than anyone else could…. Shit, at seventeen she was already more accomplished than most senior agents, certainly far more than her father had ever been….

Joe Blake's talents had never been anything more than physical, that was why when he disappeared they hadn't bothered doing anything beyond putting out a termination order on him, but he had been almost good enough to make SAD and he could charm the pants off most woman, as he proved when even the brilliant Fox fell to his charms… If that union hadn't created something as incredible as Sarah Walker, he'd be sorely tempted to track down whatever idiot ever let Joe Blake come in contact with the Fox and ensure that they suffered a very slow and painful death, because that had ultimately led to them losing the Fox, and that had set the CIA back years, if not more. Mind you, seeing what happened when those types of physical talents were combined with a brilliant mind like her's made him wonder what had happened to Frost and Orion's children, because Frost had been as far ahead of everyone else twenty five years ago as Walker was now, so combining her abilities with Orion's brain would have almost certainly created something just as incredible there.

He snorted, thinking that women of that calibre appeared to be more choosy than other women though, because he'd heard that Walker had already earned herself the name the Ice Queen for pretty much the same reason Frost got her name in training, they both froze out any man stupid enough to try and play them like they did other women, and beat them down if they didn't get the message. As he recalled, Frost had never fallen for Blake's act either, but somehow she fell for Orion…. He shook his head at that, if he'd reassigned Frost when he saw what was happening they might have managed to hang onto them, but he'd thought at the time that it would give him something to hold over them, like he was holding the threat of punishing her mother over Walker….. That reminded him to make sure he put the fear of god into those techs to inspire them to come up with more convincing 'proof' that they had the Fox, those pictures had looked good to him but Walker had seen through them straight away.

With that he went back to thinking what Walker's next mission would be... he was tempted to just tell her that the targets were too important to kill so she'd have to put up with what they did to her, but that Bentley bitch probably had enough connections to dig up the truth, and he wasn't about to use real high value targets for that type of mission in case she just killed them anyway. Perhaps it would be better to just give her real missions, real targets that she'd have the option of getting the intel from without killing them if they didn't cross whatever line she'd drawn in her head now….

He couldn't forget the end plan here, because Walker was the only one available who had proved that they what it took to match Frost... the only upside of what happened on that mission was that she proved she was far more dangerous than anyone could have believed, looking at that face of her's. After all, that was what he'd flagged her for when he saw what she did to those guys who decided that she'd make a fun party favour back when she was fourteen, and unlike Hansen she'd lived up to that promise.… Hansen had shown promise, the way she'd taken out all those jocks with nothing but a cork screw like that, but she wasn't enough to take on Frost.

He didn't believe for a second that Frost wasn't still out there, or that he wouldn't be first on her list when she decided to go after the ones who destroyed her family, so he needed Walker. Having her as a robot who did whatever she was told without question would have been preferable, but he'd take a highly competent and lethal operative who was worried enough about what he might do to her mother to obey him, and hopefully if he stopped pushing her so hard she'd stop demanding to see the proof that he didn't have…. So that's what he'd do, keep her on the go so she didn't have time to think things through, and stop pushing her enough to motivate her to put that brain she got from her mother to work on finding a way out out.

That was how it went for the rest of Sarah's time at Harvard, she had no trouble keeping well ahead of the course schedule while staying up around the top of all her classes, which gave her plenty of time to devote to her other training with 'Aunt Jane' and others. She didn't have anyone who was anything more than a classmate to her and they'd put the story about that she was from a strict Christian family to explain why she'd never been part of the party scene, which meant that no-one noticed when some of her nights, most of her weekends and some of the breaks were spent away on missions. At least Graham had stopped demanding that she use sex to get what she was sent for out of the targets, he still prodded sometimes of course but he didn't argue so long as she got what she was sent for, not even when she killed the targets, both she and Jane were suspicious about that but they were prepared to take what they could get.

Some weekends and most of the breaks were spent away on advanced training, and she actually found that she enjoyed most of this. Some of the technical training was challenging enough to stretch her and she got advanced driving lessons with all sorts of cars and motorbikes, special operations training with the CIA's SAD guys, and she learned how to fly! They'd created Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force officer identities for her before she left high school (surprisingly, they'd let her use names that she was used to from her father's cons for most of them so that she'd have less trouble remembering them, so she'd used Caitlin O'Connell for her Navy ID, Rebecca Franco for the Marines and Ilana Truffaut for her Air Force one, and she had to admit that that had made things easier, but they'd insisted that the Army one she used the most had to be this Sarah Walker), and these were used for much of her advanced training.

Most of the planes and helicopters she was certified on were the type of utility and transport craft that she'd be likely to come across on missions (though she liked the business jets and fast helicopters), but Graham also had her certified on F-5Es, F/A-18s and F-16s in case she needed to 'borrow' a supersonic jet for a mission (that reasoning sounded pretty flimsy to her, but she wasn't going to say no to a chance like that), and flying a plane at supersonic speeds was a blast for someone who loved to going fast like she did. The first time she went supersonic, she remembered that news story about those Air Force test pilots taking the Blackbird past Mach 3 on each leg of one of its last flights before it was retired to give it its last hurrah in early Ninety Nine, and she'd wished that she could have been the one to do that. She was reminded of that in late 2002 when she watched the report of another Air Force Test Pilot taking a MiG-25 past Mach 3 on its last flight to the Air Force Museum, but she consoled herself with the thought that she'd gotten to take an F-16 to Mach 2, and that was more than most people could ever hope for.

With her eidetic memory, she had little trouble getting certified on new aircraft much faster than most pilots, and she had been intrigued to find that people had talked about a Mowgli and Raksha who'd come through between four and eight years earlier and had picked up things as fast as she did at the Air Force, Army and Navy flight schools. The strange thing was, those names had also come up in her special operations training in regard to people who came through there in the same period, though one of the SAD guys had said that she may well run into Mowgli at least on a mission some time because he tended to turn up on very difficult missions, and she gave off the same vibe. She dismissed her initial thoughts that these might all be referring to the same people as ridiculous, because she knew that she was only getting trained to this level in so many different areas because Graham had some grand plan for her, and very few people had the sort of power needed to push these things through like he did, she had to wonder what was going on there though.

Things were fairly quiet up until nearly the end of Chuck, Anna and Jill's time at Stanford, they had no problems keeping up with their academic requirements and Chuck, Jeff and Anna were keeping on top of the workload from Auntie Di, working with Mary, Emma, Ellie and Skip in Arcadia. Chuck and Anna were helping Jeff with the jobs for Charlemagne Computers Etc because that was the excuse for Jeff being there, and it also gave them a cover for missions. Jeff sometimes came with Chuck when he flew down to Los Angeles on the weekend to see the family, and in particular his little sister, but Anna rarely managed to get away because she had to keep up the cover with her girlfriend. Luckily they had little trouble getting Jill and Larkin to accept the explanation that Chuck had fallen off his Harley for the times he came back from missions injured, but Auntie Di just told him to shut up when he suggested that they use that reasoning to sell the Cover Bureau on letting him have bikes and things back in Arcadia. A couple of months before they graduated in 2001 though, their lives went pear shaped.

The roots of this actually went back to their second year, and this turned out to be the reason that Larkin had suddenly gotten more demanding about Chuck helping him with his grades, because that was when he was approached by the CIA's recruiter at Stanford, Professor Fleming.

The thing was, on paper, Larkin had looked perfect to Professor Fleming, good grades, athletic and good looking…. he had all the women on campus eating out of his hand, and he was ruthless and narcissistic enough to go for any proposal that involved him getting what he wanted, and make sure he got it. The problem, as Fleming found out after he'd sent the gushing report about his wonderful new recruit up the line, was that Larkin wasn't what he looked like on paper… Oh he was good looking and athletic and had all the girls eating out of his hand all right, but he wasn't anywhere near as bright as his grades had made him out to be, and Fleming had been specifically placed here to recruit the bright kids that Stanford was famous for.

It turned out that that scholarship kid Larkin was rooming with, Bartowski, had a girlfriend from a strict Christian family, so Larkin had managed to blackmail him into coaching him when he asked him to cover up the fact that he was staying with her a lot of the time, to prevent her family finding out about it. While Fleming gave Larkin points for the blackmail job, he wasn't about to risk his reputation by sending up the male version of a dumb blonde bimbo, so he was trying to work out how to frame it so it didn't look like the himbo had fooled him when Larkin pulled out all the stops.

When Larkin dropped to his knees, George was thinking that he should switch majors to Drama, because he had that down pat, but then his fly was down as if by magic and Larkin was going to town on him. George tried to stop him, for a moment, but that boy had such an incredible mouth! George Fleming wasn't gay, no Sir! and he'd sue anyone who said he was for defamation of character, but what that boy could do with his mouth…. he'd never experienced anything like it!

Larkin found Professor Fleming rather more mellow and open to discussing options once he was done. Fleming reasoned that it would be hard to retract his recommendation for Larkin without admitting that he'd been fooled, and as the boy had managed to do this good a job of fooling the faculty of Stanford so far, he shouldn't have any trouble fooling the office drones at the CIA when he got there. In the end Fleming said that Larkin had to get more coaching from Bartowski, and keep using the admins in the office to replace his results with better ones, but he'd cover for him where he could, providing that he kept doing what he just did, got the female recruits he wanted on board, and helped him talk around some of the more recalcitrant female students that he wanted to spend some…. extra credit time with. Larkin didn't have any trouble agreeing to all of that, the hardest part would be getting the extra coaching from Bartowski, but he was worried about getting his girlfriend in trouble with her family, so the sap would agree for her sake.

Once Larkin was gone, Fleming pulled out Bartowski's file, but after considering it for a while, he regretfully shook his head. There was no question that the kid was brilliant, he was quite possibly the best in the school, but he wasn't athletic at all, in fact he was a klutz... he could remember at least half a dozen instances without trying of Bartowski coming in in bandages because he'd had an accident of some sort…. He wasn't unfortunate looking, but he could hardly talk to girls, Larkin saying he had a girlfriend had been quite a surprise but she was probably one of those geeks he hung out with and he'd heard students talking about how nice he was, so that was probably how he'd landed her. No, Bartowski definitely wasn't agent material, and the last time he sent up a recommendation for a promising analyst he was told in no uncertain terms that they were looking for agents, not analysts! With that, Fleming put Bartowski's file away and didn't think about him again for over two years until his students did the exam for his mandatory Subliminal Imagery course, and he found that he'd had the very one they'd been looking for under his nose for the last four years.

Larkin couldn't work out what was going on when he came in for his weekly session with Fleming, because he was bouncing around like the energiser bunny, and he wasn't normally like that until after he'd done what he was here for. He asked him what he was so excited about and Fleming started raving about the Subliminal Imagery test results.

When Larkin asked what he got, Fleming dismissed it. "Oh, something in the eighties I think, but your room mate Bartowski got over ninety eight percent! It was nearly a perfect score! We've never seen anything over ninety percent before this, and the minimum threshold was set at ninety two percent, so Bartowski is the one we've been looking for!"

"What's so important about that?"

"What's so important? This is the Omaha Project Bryce, the most important project we have! We've all been searching for a candidate who had what we needed to be made the focal point for this project for years and I'm the one who found him!"

"What are you talking about George? What's the point of this Omaha Project?"

"The point Bryce? To create a super agent! Once they load this into Bartowski he'll become the most important agent in the CIA! Hell, he'll be the most important agent anywhere! No-one else will matter, the best of the rest will be made his support team and they'll get every important assignment, him and his team be unbeatable!"

The idea of being made redundant before he even started by Bartowski infuriated Bryce, and hearing 'the best of the rest' brought one person to mind, that bitch who'd dismissed him without a thought when he'd turned on the charm as soon as they completed their mission, the Ice Queen. Word was that she'd only been in the game for a few years now but she apparently had all of the top agents worried because they said that there wasn't anything she couldn't do, and he had to concede that she was stunning.

He smiled as he thought about how that sort of arm candy would get him into anywhere, and get him access to anyone he wanted, but first he was going to make the bitch pay for dismissing him like that, she was the only one who'd ever turned him down and he wasn't going to let her spoil his record, he'd have her on her knees begging for forgiveness and doing everything he said. But apparently the key to getting everything he wanted was this one stupid test, so George was about to have the time of his life. It wouldn't be long before Bartowski was dismissed and the paperwork was sent to the CIA to confirm that Bryce Larkin was the genius who'd scored over ninety eight percent in their stupid test, and then everything would be coming up roses for him! By the time Bryce left Fleming's office, he had his wish, they'd fabricated and lodged the evidence and reports for the case to have Bartowski kicked out for cheating, and Fleming had sent off the paperwork to the CIA to show that Bryce Larkin had scored over ninety eight percent in the Subliminal Imagery test. Bryce was feeling pretty good with the world at that point.

Anna knew that something was wrong when Jill's 'Uncle Bernie' suddenly turned up in Palo Alto and she had to go see him. The fact that Jill told her that this Uncle Bernie was the one who'd arranged for the endowment that paid for her to come to Stanford just made her more suspicious.

When Jill came back, she was in tears, because the endowment that Uncle Bernie had organised had come with strings attached. Apparently it had been put up by some spy organisation called 'Fulcrum' and now they were telling her that they owned her and expected her to do whatever they said, and they'd said that terrible things would happen to her family if she didn't. "Oh, and what they expect me to do is break up with Chuck and seduce Bryce Larkin to get him to ditch the CIA and come across to Fulcrum!"

When Jill finished recounting the tale, Anna held her as she asked. "Who are they Chuck? and what can we do about them?"

Chuck hadn't come across anything about them in his work, so he pulled out his phone, calling Auntie Di on speaker. "Auntie Di, what do you know about an organisation known as Fulcrum?"

She was quiet for a moment then asked cagily. "Not a lot, why do you ask Chuck?"

"Because they were apparently the ones who put up the endowment for my friend Jill Roberts to go to Stanford, and they've just called in their marker and told her that she'll do whatever they tell her to or else her family will pay."

Auntie Di swore at that and said. "I can hear that Chuck has me on speaker, so I may as well tell all of you, as I said to him I don't have much, but Fulcrum are supposedly a group of hard liners who aren't happy with how soft they see America is getting, so they've decided to take it on themselves to turn it back in the right direction."

Anna gave Jill a nudge to tell Diane what they were asking of her. "What they've ordered me to do is break up with Chuck and seduce Bryce Larkin to get him to leave the CIA and come across to them."

Diane swore again. "How the hell did you miss that Larkin was CIA Chuck?"

"I don't think he is actually CIA yet Auntie Di, he was probably recruited here, but this Fulcrum must have found out something about him to make them want him."

"You've got a point there... Okay, I think we better get your mother and Emma in on this call, and Roan too, wait a minute…."

Once she'd gotten everyone on the call, they spent the next couple of hours explaining to Jill what she'd need to do to get out of this. When Mary came out and said that she was obviously going to have to let Larkin do what he wanted to her to seduce him, Jill broke down, and Anna had to remind Mary that while Larkin was apparently bi now from the stories about all the women he'd had sex with over the last couple of years, Jill wasn't and she'd never had sex with a man.

It was actually Roan who gently pointed out that it would be best for Jill if she had her first few times with someone she could trust, like Chuck, and said that Anna could vouch for how gentle and caring he was. This was news to Mary and Diane, so there was a bit of shouting going on until Roan told them to shut up and reminded them what they were here to talk about.

Anna spoke up then. "Thank you Uncle Roan, and yes, Chuck was gentle and caring for my first few times, it was wonderful actually so I'm sure that wasn't why Lou ran away, it's up to you Honey but if Chuck is willing I think that that would be a wonderful idea?"

Jill and Chuck nodded, and Anna spoke up again to cut off Mary's angry muttering. "We'll be discussing this the next time you're here Chuck!" with "Is there anything else we need to discuss about this?"

And when Mary spoke again she sounded genuinely regretful. "Yes, I'm afraid. While I agree with the suggestion to give Jill a gentle and lovely experience for her first few times, that will not be enough I'm afraid. From what you've said about this Larkin character, you will have to expect him to be rough and demanding, especially if he believes that he is taking Charles' long term sexual partner off of him, so if Jill is to be prepared for that, you will need to be rough and demanding with her as well Chuck, and oral sex, most men demand oral sex, all the more so when they're trying to establish their dominance."

Jill and Chuck were looking horrified at this, and Anna pointed out something else. "And anal, given Larkin's original orientation Jill will need to be prepared for that too."

That made Chuck look even more worried. "Oh no! You can't have sex with him without a condom Jill! Being as arrogant as he is he probably refuses to use one most of the time so there's too much risk of AIDS! No, we have to find another way around this! Auntie Di, can't you arrange for Jill's family to be put into witness protection or something?"

His mother spoke up again. "Calm down Honey, there are ways around this, it isn't too difficult to convince a man that it's his idea to wear a condom, I can talk Jill through some methods and I'm sure that Roan and Diane will be able to tell her more. As far as witness protection goes, we don't know whether Fulcrum actually has them under observation yet but if they do, trying to move them would just put them at risk. Jill, this is your decision, if you think you can do it, doing what we've discussed will most probably be the safest option for your family. If that is what you choose, you and Charles should start practising sex after Roan and I tell you what you need to do. It will take you a few days before you'll be ready to try approaching Larkin though so we'll have time for more coaching sessions between your practice sessions. So Honey, can you do this, or do we need to take a chance and try to get your family out?"

There was silence as they waited for Jill's answer, she looked a question at Chuck and when he nodded she spoke. "Yes, if this is what it takes to keep my family safe, I can do it, so what else do I need to know?"

They spoke for a while longer and when they finished the call, Anna kissed both of them before they went to have the first of their practice sessions.

As Mary had said, it took a few days before Jill was anything like ready to approach Larkin, and she spent quite a bit of time on the phone to Mary, Diane and Roan getting coached on what she needed to do. That also gave her and Chuck the opportunity to stage an escalating series of arguments to convince everyone, and in particular Larkin, that there was trouble in their relationship. They couldn't work out what Larkin was looking so smug about when they had the final argument in his and Chuck's room though, not until Chuck was called into the Dean's office to be expelled for cheating the next day anyway.

Once they'd done what they could to ensure that Jill would be prepared, and talked through and role played various scenarios in hope that she'd be able to minimise the sex involved, Jill went to see Larkin. She was lucky, both in that he wasn't really interested in doing much with a woman and that he had a short fuse anyway, which meant that from what she said she got through it with minimal sex and had him set up, contented, for the talk she had to have with him. Playing up to Larkin's ego after he'd had his fill of sex was all it took for Jill to get him to agree to have a meeting with Uncle Bernie in that first session, which meant that she didn't have to see him again after that.

Larkin didn't waste any time telling everyone that Jill had come to him, upset about Chuck being caught cheating, and how he'd banged her every which way. This of course had Jill being called a two timing slut by most of the people on campus, but she was almost finished at Stanford anyway and as long as she still had Anna (and Chuck for that matter) she wasn't worried about what people on the campus thought of her. She only had to finish her exams and leave.

Uncle Bernie was an old hand at this so he knew how to deal with people like Larkin, he just offered him Jill and anything else he wanted, but while Larkin took everything else, he passed on Jill because he had his eye on the prize, the Ice Queen. Luckily for Jill, that meant that Fulcrum really had no further use for her, sure, she'd bagged them the prize but she'd just happened to be in the right place for that. They weren't about to let her off the hook completely, but they put her aside to be forgotten until something else came up once Larkin passed on her.

As soon as they had confirmation that Jill would be OK, Chuck took the plane and headed back to Los Angeles. Of course, the first thing he had to face when he got home was the discussion about what Uncle Roan and Anna had revealed when they were trying to deal with Jill's crisis, that he'd had sex with two girls when he was eleven or twelve. That wasn't a fun discussion, but they had Ellie and Auntie Em there to diffuse the situation, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

The week since his expulsion had given him plenty of time to collect all the digital and video evidence he needed to prove his case against the university (Larkin was pathetic when it came to security, so he'd just had to wait until he was logged onto the network to get a copy of everything on his laptop, which included all of the evidence that he was collecting on Fleming to ensure that he delivered on his promises, as well as the evidence that they'd fabricated against Chuck (and the sex tape he'd made of him and Jill but Chuck corrupted the video enough to ensure that she couldn't be identified before he could use it). He also had the video evidence from the IP cameras he'd set up in their room in first year, which clearly showed Larkin planting the test results under his mattress, and showing the campus police where to find them), and he had plenty of work to be getting on with in Arcadia.

There hadn't been anything of any great interest other than the recordings of Fleming with Larkin and other students from his office and the records of students' altered results on Larkin's laptop, but those, and of course the recordings of Larkin planting the stolen exams under his mattress to be found by Campus Security made most of the case they needed to get his expulsion overturned, the rest came from the Stanford systems logs which showed where Fleming had altered Chuck's results to match the stolen exams.

A month after Chuck had been expelled, he went back to Stanford, with John as FBI Special Agent Martin Harris, and Roan as Chuck's lawyer Herman Goldstein, senior partner at Goldstein, Cohen and Marks again. The Chancellor went white when he saw them, because he hadn't forgotten what had happened the last time these men were in his office. He quickly called the Dean and other relevant people in.

John steamrollered over their objections as he showed proof that everything used to expel Chuck had in fact been fabricated by Larkin and Fleming, and that the Dean had done absolutely no investigation into the matter and ignored the processes that he had been legally required to follow, expelling Chuck without giving him any opportunity to defend himself on Flemings' word alone. Faced with the proof that they were facing serious legal issues, the university immediately reversed the expulsion and cancellation of Chuck's scholarship, and offered him the opportunity to take his exams at his convenience so that he could graduate with the same standing as he would have before this unfortunate business.

They were taken aback when Chuck said he'd take the exams then and there, because he'd moved away immediately after he was expelled and it would be difficult to come back to Palo Alto now, but they scrabbled to get set up the examination immediately, hoping that this would be enough to get them out of the hole they'd dug themselves into. Meanwhile, John and Roan remained in the Chancellor's office, going through the evidence and showing where the university had failed to comply with its legal responsibilities in this matter.

They were still there when Chuck returned a couple of hours later. The officials asked whether he wanted to schedule a day to come back to do the exams, presuming that he must have given up on them, but he shook his head, saying that they were all completed. While shocked, one of the officials was sent to get the results of the exams while they worked through the rest of it. Roan pointed out that his client had changed his name as soon as he left Stanford to try and get away from the stigma accruing from the very public scandal of being expelled the way he was and requested that Mr Bartowski's degrees be issued in his new name, Charles Carmichael, handing over the paperwork to show that the change of name was legal. They fell over themselves agreeing to this, and re-issuing his MBA in his new name as well.

Roan smiled to himself then, because this was what he'd been looking forward to! With that, he launched into the matter of compensation for loss of reputation and potential earnings resulting from Mr Bartowski's unlawful and very public expulsion for cheating. He presented numerous newspaper and on-line reports about Stanford's bright young star Charles Bartowski being caught cheating and expelled for that as evidence of this. Roan then presented them with a claim for seven million dollars compensation for the losses Mr Bartowski had incurred, but the university officials ignored the Chancellor when he tried to shut them up (as he recognised the significance of that amount and knew what was about to happen) and they rejected it out of hand, saying that it was preposterous because Bartowski was getting his degrees and he'd already changed his name to remove any stigma attached to the matter.

Roan looked a question at Chuck and at Chuck's nod took back the claim paperwork. The Chancellor groaned at this, but the other officials were crowing. "You're withdrawing your ridiculous claim then?" Roan shook his head and grinned wolfishly as he presented the paperwork for a new claim of fourteen million. "Not at all! I really must thank you Chancellor, it was rather sporting of you not to spoil my fun after the last time. You see gentlemen, Mister Bartowski, sorry, Mister Carmichael here is an honourable young man and he didn't want to see the university being unfairly penalised for the failings of a few individuals, so he insisted on the much lower claim amount. However, as my agreed fee is a percentage of the settlement I obtain for him, he conceded that if, and only if, you rejected the extremely fair compensation claim that he asked for out of hand and refused to consider it, he would allow me to proceed with my original proposal, which is what we are now doing. So…"

Roan spent the next hour going through the detailed earning projections for Stanford's brightest young star in possibly decades, against those of an unknown Stanford graduate with the type of results that they knew he was capable of. He also pointed out that, while Chuck had changed his name to Carmichael to remove the stigma now attached to the Bartowski name due to the unfounded slander put about by representatives of the university, his sister was in no position to do this, so by defaming Chuck, they had also adversely effected his sister's reputation and prospects. He added that the university should thank its luck stars that the rest of the family had agreed to forgo pursuing damages because they were not trying to start their careers as the two younger Bartowskis still were.

They left Stanford that day with Charles Carmichael's degrees (with an ever better result than he'd been expecting), and guarantees from the university that they would provide fair and honest references to any university that he chose to pursue post graduate studies with and confirmation that the charges of cheating levelled against Mr Bartowski had been proven to be totally false, and that he'd since obtained his degrees without revealing the name he was now using if they received any formal enquiries on the matter. They had also confirmed with the bank that the fourteen million dollars had been transferred into Goldstein, Cohen and Marks' account before they left, and readily agreed to the university's conditions of total secrecy around the outcome and terms of the settlement, as that suited them down to the ground.

Coming up to her final exams at Harvard in April 2002, Sarah Walker (or rather the Ice Queen, as that was the only name most people in the CIA knew her by) had completed an unprecedented number of missions, with an unparalleled success rate to boot, in the past three and a half years…. but Sarah was upset because 'Aunt Jane' had been the closest thing to family she'd had since the day her father took her away from everyone she loved, and she'd be losing that in just over a month if they made her a full agent when she graduated from Harvard. Jane could see what was going through her head and sat her down to talk about it.

"I know I complained about how taking on the job of becoming your handler was going backwards for me three and a half years ago, but you know that I've loved our time here together don't you?" Sarah nodded tentatively at that.

"You also need to know that even though I'll stop being your handler, I can…. and will! become your mentor, and the mentor program is an established culture in the CIA that even Langston Fucking Graham would have trouble fighting. An agent may only be prevented from contacting their mentor in situations where they are undercover and any and all communications represent a risk. Leaving an agent under those circumstances for extended periods is also prohibited, so if I don't hear from you for too long, I've got grounds to call for an investigation, and you better believe that if I don't hear from you at least every month or two I will be demanding an investigation!"

"Honey, you're going to turn this agency on its head, and I'm going to be right there, cheering you on, Okay?" This time Sarah's nod was more confident.

"So stop worrying about things that aren't going to happen, and start worrying about how I'm going to kick your arse if you don't ace all your final exams and assignments!" That got the smile she loved to see from Sarah, and they put aside their cares for the rest of the night.

Sarah did ace all of her final exams and assignments, graduating summa cum laude on both her Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration degrees and magna cum laude on her language degrees. She and Jane didn't have a chance to celebrate that achievement though, they barely had time to exchange contact details because Graham had her extracted as soon as she finished her last exam, and she was just handed the envelope that held her formal agent's credentials on the plane on the way to her first mission.

Sarah went for eight months from the day she finished her exams without any significant breaks, just bouncing from one mission to the next and her supposed 'down time' was usually taken up in travelling to the next mission, so she couldn't get back for Jane's induction as the Deputy Director of Operations for the CIA, but at least with Jane holding down that role, she was better able to track where Sarah went because all field agents reported through the DDO.

At the start of 2003 though, Sarah was assigned to work with an all woman team in Paris with the ridiculous name of the CAT Squad. She was pleased to find that at least she had been partnered with Carina Miller, because she and Carina had worked together many times and they meshed well both professionally and personally. In fact, Carina was the closest thing to a friend she'd had since she was forced into this life, but one of the other women on the team, Zondra Rizzo, quickly became a friend as well.

Their team achieved quite a lot in the two years that they were together, even though the fourth member of their group was a traitor who had been placed there to sabotage them. When Amy was killed in a trap that she'd tried to set for them though, someone (Sarah's money was on Graham) immediately disbanded the group and they were all sent back to their agencies (the CIA for Sarah, DEA for Carina and FBI for Zondra) without warning. As with Jane, they hardly had time to exchange contact details before they were sent off to their respective agencies.

Sarah's immediate reaction when she was called into Graham's office to meet her new partner after that was 'Oh fuck no!', because she remembered this idiot from a mission she did when she was still at Harvard. As an agent he was mediocre, but as a person he'd never rate that high. She requested a private word with Graham to ask why, with her record, he would partner her with something like this, but he ignored her. So that was how she came to be partners with Bryce Larkin in 2005.