A/N Turning the Beard upside-down and inside-out. Making stuff up. No whiny Chuck here. Hope you don't mind.
"What worked?"
"You're worth it."
"Listen and learn, idiot."
"Can we go to work now?"
"Anyone you like."
The underling considered the words, looking for a trap. His leader wasn't known for giving his men such freedom when carrying out his orders. Targets were targeted for a reason. "Anyone?"
"It feels odd, I know," said the leader. "I do not have you killed for your insolence only because it feels odd to me too." He transmitted a file. "There are certain considerations of location, timing, and plausibility, but when it comes to choosing the actual person, you are directed to use your own judgment."
The agent looked over the parameters. No name, no picture. Not even a place, just a set of carefully bounded zones. He didn't need to know why they were bounded the way they were and so he didn't think about it. He didn't need to know why a target was needed and so he didn't care. A zone
was a zone, a target was a target. He would examine the zones, he would select a target, and he would…do nothing more.
It would be an interesting exercise.
The leader watched his underling leave the room. He was a capable agent, and the leader regretted the use of him for this. Independent thought led to independent ambition, though. The leader had no use for ambitious underlings, and less desire to have to watch his back. That was a matter for later, though, and the leader had other steps of his own to take, to make that moment come to pass.
Some time later, in the target city…
The agent decided to take a break in his quest. Since he'd come here, he'd examined three of the six zones and found them wanting in opportunities. Time to rest, rehydrate, and reconsider. He pulled his car into the next lot that boasted an establishment where he might do all three at once. Some local shop called Orange Orange.
The counter-person made the usual polite inquiries. He looked at her name-tag then up into her face. Eyes, hair, cheekbones, chin…she reminded him of someone. "Well, Sam, I'm thinking…" He looked at the board. "Is that guacamole?"
Her face grew a bit mask-like. "It is."
"In slot one?"
She shrugged. "It's our best seller."
A quick scan of the board revealed the usual array of flavors and toppings. They didn't interest him, not as much as blending in with the crowd. He'd had worse liquid lunches. "I'll take the guac."
While she busied herself with his order, the agent scanned the notices on the bulletin board. A few were of interest, until he compared their locations with his zone limitations. Finally only one remained, and he had the notice memorized by the time the counter-person said his order was ready. He paid her, thanked her, and left.
She pressed a button on the register.
"This is Shaw."
"This is Jones," she replied, maintaining an impersonal tone. "I just had an interesting encounter."
"Interesting in what way, Sam?"
Ah, he was alone. "I had a customer."
"That is unusual."
She pressed on in the face of his blinding wit. "He bought a guac, Daniel."
"He what?"
"After I told him it was our best seller."
"It's your only seller."
"I didn't mention that part," said Jones. "And he called me Sam."
"What's so odd about that?" asked Shaw. "It is your name."
"Those idiots from the Buy More stare at my chest every day, I doubt either of them know it."
"Hmm, you've got a couple of very good points there," said Shaw. "I take it you're thinking enemy action?" He didn't wait for her to respond. "Send me his photo and whatever else you've got, I'll run it past Carmichael."
She hid her displeasure behind a professional-sounding, "Very good." She had a face shot from internal security and the details of his car, and they all went down the Carmichael drain.
"Good call, Jones."
Must be somebody with him, probably Carmichael. "Thank you, sir." The light on her board died, the connection ended. Daniel never was much on the little courtesies.
A few minutes later, down in Castle…
Chuck came down the stairs from the Home Theater entrance. "What's going on, Agent Shaw?" They'd had their sparring session already. Shaw had rolled back the clock on the training regimen after the whole Rafe Gruber episode.
"You tell me, Chuck," said Shaw, trying to sound friendly. "Sam upstairs just reported a possible contact." A monitor flickered to life, showing the images Jones had sent.
Chuck flashed. "Well, he's a bad guy, isn't he?"
Shaw opened a folder and put the images into it. "How bad?" he asked, opening a document.
"Ring bad," said Chuck, and Shaw started making more notes for the new file. "An assassin in their recruitment branch. I guess he takes care of the people who say no." He looked more closely at the picture of the car. "Isn't that the Buy More parking lot?"
"Recruitment?" said Shaw. "They must have discovered a vulnerability on someone. Check the files on all the agents in LA, see if you can find out who they might be after. I'll let the others know, and start a trace on that car."
Across town…
Drs. Devon and Ellie Woodcombe waited on line with more patience than most of the others on line with them. "Is the whole weekend going to be like this?" asked Ellie.
"Relax, El," said her husband in his soothing baritone. "We had our dance. Now it's time to pay the piper."
"If I'd known they would tap us to attend this year's conference, I'd have refused the tickets and stayed home." The line moved and she dragged her bag two feet down the hall. "We could spend this same weekend lounging around a pool somewhere."
"Just think about Pa–"
Down the hall, a man tripped over a luggage dolly and fell onto a potted plant, shattering the pot. Everyone on line tensed, willing to help if help was needed, but not willing to risk being sent to the end of the line if it was not.
Devon ran down the hall, leaving Ellie to hold their places. She watched her husband do what he did best, making whatever part of the world was lucky enough to have him in it as right as it could be. Soon enough, the man was upright, clearly uninjured, and shaking Devon's hand.
"Thanks, Doctor…Woodcombe," said the agent. "Have a nice convention."
"I'll do my best," said the blond god as he walked away.
The agent looked over the line, full of beaten-down nobodies. The helpful doctor really stood out in that crowd. He'd do.
A few minutes later…
"What's this all about, Shaw?" asked Casey as he came out of the tunnel. He held up his hand, fingers close together. "I was this close to selling my fourth BeastMaster this week. A personal best."
"Sorry about that, Colonel, but we've got a new player in town."
"Another mission?" Casey looked at Chuck. "You've been on fire this week. We should have you impersonate assassins more often."
Chuck remembered the mindset of the killer he'd almost become. "Please don't." He looked up as the door to the Double O puffed open.
Two ladies came through, both in orange and white. One was smiling, one was not. "Hi guys," said Jones excitedly.
"Sarah, are you okay?" asked Chuck as she came down the stairs more slowly than Jones.
"Just tired, you've been keeping us pretty busy lately," she said. "What's up?"
"The Ring is in town, possibly with an eye toward turning one of our own," said Shaw, putting up the images again, and a map of the city. He circled a small area with a laser pointer. "The signal from the rented car places him at this location."
"Kind of obvious, don't you think?" asked Casey.
"Only if he had reason to think we were looking for him," said Shaw. "Clearly he doesn't, and we're going to keep it that way. I propose a four-person team. Sarah–"
"Can I suggest Agent Jones in my place?" asked Sarah. Shaw was in charge of Ring-related operations, so this was his call. "Our skill sets overlap in this area, and she's been stuck behind the counter long enough."
Shaw looked at Jones, practically vibrating in place. "I have no objection. In fact, I was about to suggest it." He paused, but then continued on in his C-in-C voice. "So, a four-person team, me and Sarah, I mean, Sam, as a vacationing couple, Casey as backup, and Chuck to provide on-site analysis." He looked around for any questions. "Let's get to work."
Post-meeting, in a prep room where Shaw and Jones were not…
"So what do you think's going on?" asked Casey, as he and Chuck filled their respective bags with gear. "Why'd he bench Sarah?"
Chuck shrugged, not very successful at hiding his own discomfort. "She asked him to."
"She beat him to the punch," translated Casey. "And what's up with that?"
Chuck looked up in the general direction of the Double O. "I wish I knew." He was pretty sure he did.
Sarah sat behind the counter of the Orange Orange, not bored. She was too annoyed with Daniel Shaw, calling her Sam like that. Perhaps she should be grateful to him, for putting a literal name to what had been itching under her skin for days.
No. Annoyed is best. He'd play it off like a slip of the tongue, of course he would, but she knew what he was really doing. It was possible he did it accidentally, but while she would never call Shaw a great spy, or even a very good one, he had enough skill to not make slips like that unless he wanted to. Wanted to use her name in front of Chuck, wanted to make her wallow in guilt, over not having told it to Chuck first, or at all.
The difference between Chuck and Shaw, however, between a great spy and a merely competent one, was that Chuck hadn't needed her to tell him anything. So Daniel Shaw had missed the mark on that one, but he'd hit another, all unintended. She remembered standing by the window, with Jones in that robe. Remembered the door opening behind them, Shaw's voice saying, "Sam."
And she'd turned.
Of all the names on all the women in all the world, he had to say that one. How long since she'd thought of herself that way? Been that girl, the girl who'd made such a wrong, wrong choice? She raised her arm, stroking her doubled hearts. Past and present, present and…future?
The bell on the door dinged, and she looked up. "Hi, Morgan."
He looked around the empty room. "Hi, Sarah, Chuck's not here, is he?" He stepped on his own question. "Good."
"You're avoiding him?" asked Sarah.
"No, I'm looking for you." Morgan dropped his managerial attitude. "You see, Chuck and me, we've known each other most of our lives. We went through puberty together. That awkward stage after puberty. Our awkward high school years, his awkward college years. Our previous awkward Buy More years and our current awkward Buy More years. And that's what makes this conversation so very…"
"Awkward?"
"Necessary," said Morgan. "As his best friend, I approved of you to take over that most coveted position. He lights up around you, becomes the man we both know he can and should be around you. Having seen what happened to him after Jill, I shudder to think what sort of a bathrobe-wearing, cheeseball-eating, bearded wreck he'd become if you broke him too." He shuddered.
"I have no intention of 'breaking' Chuck…"
"Good," said Morgan, pointing at her wrist. "Then you shouldn't have any problem telling me all about Sam."
Sam who? Sarah stared down, the charm dangling there. What could she tell Morgan about Sam?
No, really, what could she tell Morgan about Sam? Sam was the backstory to her life, her real, CIA life. A life full of lies and deceit, with poor Sam buried at the bottom of it. Even she didn't know that story all that well, but with Chuck's help she could. Might. He always said he didn't care about her past, but of course he did. He would never pry, but any crumb, any fragment of her life that came his way he would take and hold and treasure, as if the completeness of his own life depended on the completeness of hers. She could and would tell him anything.
She couldn't tell Morgan anything, whether she wanted to or not. Her spy life always got in the way. Even Chuck had had to go pretty deep into the spy world, like some spy-Orpheus, to find his spy-Eurydice and lead her back into the light.
Wait a minute. Was that a nerd-metaphor? How cool was that! Where did it come from? She and Chuck didn't really do a lot of Greek mythology together, and how did she know it was Greek, or mythology?
She looked up, and saw Morgan still there, waiting for an answer to his question. Right, who was Sam? Apparently, she had even less idea than she'd thought.
Morgan watched her face go through a number of contortions, with only confusion as a result. No words past her perfect lips. When she finally shrugged in defeat, he nodded, and braced himself. "I take no pleasure in this, I want you to know that," he said softly, "But I'm afraid I have to challenge you, Sarah Walker. I have to challenge for the right to be Chuck's best friend."
A/N2 I hope you'll drop me a line and tell me what you think of this rewrite so far.