A/N: Addressing a comment in a review: this story extends pre-Chuck past the finale, so this will include Charah at a later point. It does, with the exception of post-finale, adhere to canon, with embellishments I have added.
I met Bryce Larkin when I was 25. I'm mentioning this here because a generic retrospective on my life would start with Sam, and then move to Bryce. At least that would be the case if all we were focused on were my trysts. Life is more than that, even though I honestly wouldn't have believed it at the time. After all, he was only the second man I had ever been with.
Technically.
That was said with an enormous, disgust-ridden sigh. Disgust at myself…for giving away what little control over my life I actually had in those days.
The reason for that word "technically" is actually the next part of the story, the part in between Sam and Bryce. Carina Miller.
And why is that, exactly?
Because I don't know, for certain, if I had sex with anyone else during those interim years…2002 and 2005, when I met Bryce. If that sounds a little sick, and maybe a little frightening…believe me, I know. It's the main reason why I never drink to intoxicate myself anymore. Once I understood that control, however illusory it may have been in actuality, was my only true weapon, I never relinquished it again, for any reason. Well, except for love. Love is the opposite of control.
I think, looking back on it, there was so little about my life back then that I could control at all. My job dictated my life, and every aspect of it…where I lived, where I worked, and how I dressed. There was no work versus non-work. My life was the job and nothing else. I went where they sent me and did what they told me. I hadn't understood that completely yet when I was still training, as I gave away almost all of my control to Sam during the time when we were working together, at least the part off the training field.
He decided when and how we had sex, and how we interacted when we did. My only control in that situation had been my consent. He offered and I accepted. For all the mixed emotions I still have when I think about that time, I know I continued to accept his offers because they were so pleasurable. Of the three of them that I was with before my husband, having sex with Sam was the most pleasurable by far. He was better in bed, if you will, just like he'd told me. Chuck is not, could never be, part of that ranking system. It's like comparing apples to salamanders. Not even in the same kingdom.
Despite the loss of general structure, which I guess was the major problem theme during my days with the CAT squad (and yes, I'll explain that in a minute), that time also showed me the value of being in control. It was my eventual defense against the craziness of that time, and almost all the time after. Graham always had the ultimate control of me, but the purgatory in between his orders and my life was about the illusion. I gradually found that strength, and I never let it go…until I met Chuck. Loving him gave me a different kind of strength–the strength to trust him…to surrender myself completely to him. Most people do that without thinking about it, but he always understood how much it meant…how much it took for me to be able to do that. That is just one of a plethora of reasons why he is so amazing…why I count myself blessed to share my life with him.
Anyway, before I tell how this began, it's important here to say how it ended, considering how debauched it seems to sound when I say it now. It's safe for me to say that if I don't remember if any of that occurred, it doesn't matter. It meant nothing, even less than the encounters I am recounting here. I played Russian roulette and I escaped relatively unscathed. Much like Ebenezer Scrooge, I had to look into the fires of hell to understand there was another choice for me. Carina was not the Ghost of Christmas Future, but she was closer to it than she would like to think. She would insist I mention here, as well, she would be a much better dressed version of that character. Yes, that makes me smile just to say it.
So, scroll backward to 2002. I was still finishing up my degree and my tenure with the Secret Service. In the very early post 9/11 world, we as Secret Service agents were on highest alert. It was never a nine to five job, though not as demanding as life as a spy. However, it did monopolize a larger part of our lives than before. It was still a normal job, relatively speaking. After one entire year, I had still only fired my weapon in training and during practice.
My diploma came via certified mail. One more momentous occasion that happened in obscurity, acknowledged by no one, not even Graham, who had sent me to obtain the degree in the first place. I think somehow him saying it out loud would have been too obvious, for I always believed that was just a screen for his questionable practices and an easy way to disguise my dubious age.
The espionage world changed significantly after September 11th as well. I had not been an active participant before that existence-altering day, but it was still apparent that a sort of light switch had been flipped. The finger pointing that went on, actually for years, after that incident colored the way we did our jobs forever after. The CIA had known something was brewing; they just lacked specifics, and that vagueness had contributed to the powers-that-be disregarding the information gleaned from the dangerous work of intelligence gathering. The CIA took the brunt of most of that criticism, though the failure stretched across almost every branch of the Department of Defense. A theme emerged–lack of collaboration among the different alphabet agencies, as they were called.
The government's remedy for that? A computer called the Intersect. It was designed to mine data. All the intelligence collected by operatives in the field–operatives like Sam who had infiltrated a terrorist cell, for instance–would be uploaded to this master computer. The computer searched for patterns, correlations that human minds might dismiss or not notice. It was a cause and effect argument, but it was effective. Had the Intersect existed prior to September 11th, that intelligence Sam had recovered, combined with the evidence of training camp closures, missing persons of interest, and even increased incidences of foreign nationals seeking pilot training, could not have been so easily dismissed by the National Security Council as it had been in the summer of 2001.
The government had started building the first intelligence Intersect in 2002. I was fully briefed on it from the beginning by Graham. He pulled me from Secret Service detail once the construction started, with the explanation that there was another project initiative in which he wanted me to participate. It was called the Omaha Project.
To this day, over 20 years from its inception, I still do not know all of the specifics of that. The project was disbanded when suitable candidates could not be located. I know more now than I did in 2002, mostly because of intelligence we recovered from a CIA recruiting program at Stanford University–another story for later. Back then, all I knew was that it was a military application, sanctioned by the government once the U.S. was fighting with boots on the ground in Afghanistan during the War on Terror. It was touted as a necessity to fight the type of war we were waging in the modern-day anti-terror theater.
The irony of it all, I believe, is that if I had actually worked on Omaha, I would have met Bryce when I was 22 instead of 25. I don't know what, if any, difference that would have made to us. When Graham had brought it up to me, it was because an ideal candidate had been identified…a black swan that set the entirety of the project's wheels turning. I found out years later that it was Chuck. There had been rumors back then…that the entire design of the computer, the data architecture itself, had been based on the functionality of a specific human brain. I found out again, years later, that it was Chuck's father, a spy himself, who had designed it, using an accidental test run on Chuck at age nine as the beta test. Regardless, in between them identifying Chuck and setting the wheels in motion was Bryce, working behind the scenes to protect Chuck from that ultimate destiny. So like Bryce to have done that; he could always manage condescension and concern in the same breath and no one questioned either sentiment. The lie he and the CIA operative, a college professor, devised about the ideal candidate were convincing enough for them to disband it–believing the entire premise for the testing was inherently flawed.
In a sense, they were correct. For a multitude of reasons that were not known until years after I first met him, the Intersect worked best in Chuck, and only Chuck. For whatever unknown reason, his brain was special. That's what they had seen at Stanford and what we all learned as Operation Bartowski progressed. It drove countless highly trained operatives insane…and Chuck, a regular civilian, had tolerated more than five uploads, once even more than one at a time.
It was, at the end of the day, their catch 22. The Intersect worked best in the person who had the most control over it. However, that control rendered it useless–because in order for it to work, it needed to circumvent the will of the test subject. It was meant to create automated, computer-programmed killing machines, when their only viable candidate would not run over a squirrel with his car, let alone kill another human being. Bryce, in all his convoluted wisdom, thought he was protecting Chuck from being used as an unwilling test subject, somehow later rationalizing that sending it to Chuck unbeknownst to him was the best option to protect its integrity. I know without question, after everything I have seen over the course of Operation Bartowski, that if Bryce had not intervened, Omaha would still have failed. Chuck may not have survived it, for his knowledge of it alone would have assured his CIA sanctioned execution, but they would not have succeeded.
With Omaha gone, Graham reluctantly assigned me to a team known as the CATS. Clandestine Attack Team…squad. Yeah, dumb, right? Leave it to a room full of stodgy old men fantasizing about Charlie's Angels or some other stupid, oversexed ideal to need some silly acronym to amuse themselves. What the CATS were–a cross-disciplinary espionage team. Zondra Rizzo and I were CIA. Carina Miller and Amy Denning were DEA. We worked primarily in pairs…Carina and I, Zondra and Amy. Our missions were sometimes all four of us, or any combination of us, including solo missions once in a while, though those were limited. We were all still young–Carina and I were 22, Amy was 23, and Zondra was only 21. I never asked Zondra specifically about her status, but I was technically not a full-fledged agent at that point, as I hadn't had my Red Test yet.
Primarily, we worked in South America, fighting terrorists, drug cartels, and any number of amalgamations of one or the other. The nature of the work just never called for the type of force where a Red Test would have been required. I had a gun, just like I had when I was Secret Service, only this time I fired it. It was just my good fortune that I never killed anyone during that time. I don't know if the other girls ever did–that was just something we didn't discuss. We were friendly, but not friends. Tentative friendships developed, but as with all spies, there was a limit to how close we could be. We were required to keep too much of ourselves hidden away to develop any true sense of friendship. Carina and I were the closest. She was my friend. Someone outside this world would look on with horror, knowing we didn't really treat each other as friends would or should, but, we were also spies…and that, unfortunately, was the best we could do in our circumstances.
Amy was the party girl. Effervescent and bubbly, sometimes sickeningly so, nothing ever interfered with her joie de vivre. She gave off what some would call a ditzy vibe, although even back then I always got the impression she was playing dumb. Typical blonde bimbo archetype. It worked to her advantage, for she was frequently underestimated, even by the rest of the team, although that comes later. She was the oldest CAT, as we were affectionately called, but also had the most traditional path towards becoming a spy. She was recruited out of college, like the majority of intelligence operatives. What caught the eye of the DEA was her fighting skills. Her academic performance was mediocre, but she was a triple black belt in karate as a young teenager. Her advanced defensive skills, combined with her air-headed persona, were a deadly combination.
I know, at least in the beginning, she was dedicated to the job. I don't know what happened, when the moment came when she decided she'd had enough. There almost always comes that point, believe me. There are no middle aged spies, or, if there are, they are shadows of their former selves. I think the goal for most is to live long enough to become obsolete, with the opportunity to hit that epiphany at any point. Sometimes, it was just to not live that long. I always believed Sam was in that category, treating his life as forfeit after he suffered a devastating tragedy. I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that I was more like him than I wanted to admit. Amy's "enough" was to turn–switch sides, the money offered by criminality too enticing when juxtaposed with the starkness of our lives.
Zondra Rizzo was the street fighter. She was the youngest of us, and, despite the fact that I consider her a close friend now, I know nothing at all of her past or how she ended up recruited by the CIA. It was probably closer to my history, considering Graham was involved in much the same way he was involved in mine. She knows more about me now, after 20 years, but I am significantly different than I was back then. She is, remarkably, almost the same now as she was then. She isn't a field operative any longer, not in her forties. She has a desk job…but she still scares the shit out of almost everyone who crosses her path.
There was no problem Zondra thought couldn't be solved with fighting. When she was at risk of being captured, she broke bones. When she had been captured, she shot her way out. When any of us were in danger, she went on the offensive and kicked the shit out of any and everyone. When we were off duty, and someone looked at her the wrong way, she brawled until we were kicked out of wherever we were. When quarters were close, and there was no place to vent her frustrations, she could sometimes fight with us. Amy was the only one of us who never received a right cross or a backhanded slap when we disagreed.
Zondra was also fiercely protective of us as her partners. Like I said, I know nothing about her past, but my intuition is stellar, considering the spy training as well as my training growing up with my father. I always believed something had happened to her when she was young that required her physical strength to rule her, as a means of protection, possibly self-preservation. I am just guessing, but I always felt like she had no one else other than that team, so as dysfunctional as we were at times, we were her family, and she treated us as such.
Then there was Carina Miller. I only know slightly more about her past than the others. She was native to Sweden. She spoke both English and Spanish with no accent. She had some university training, then immigrated to the U.S. I'm not sure how she ended up working as an undercover DEA agent, although her perfect Spanish may have contributed. I do know her entire family was killed by a suicide bomber in Stockholm when she was 19. I always believed her personality was always the same, and it was her circumstances that precipitated the career choice.
She was amazing at her job. The best the DEA had…for a very long time. It was why they used her when they wanted to join forces with the CIA or NSA. She was highly adaptable and always successful. For all that, though, she was no team player. She preferred working alone. The CATS was her worst nightmare. She, to this day, will tell you meeting me was the highlight of that point in her life.
She was what I've heard referred to as a loose cannon. Unpredictable, untrustworthy, impulsive…even reckless. After all this time, I know what was driving her back then. She had a death wish of sorts—survivor's guilt for skiing with her university friends while her parents and two sisters were blown to bits on the sidewalks at a Christmas market. Oh, and she wanted revenge—on everyone and everything that left her alone in the world, that threatened the life and safety of other innocents as well.
Because she cared so little for herself—she cared almost nothing for anyone else. We were friends, the way I described. She was fun, on the surface…a breath of fresh air in my stuffy life, without being annoying and bubble-headed like Amy. I could see underneath that mask she wore…one of the talents I honed conning people from a young age. In the deepest part of me where everything I felt was buried, I empathized with her. I was just as alone…only for different reasons. Worse, when I dwelt, since my father was alive and I still lived like he was dead.
We worked hard and played harder. Time in between missions was full of drinking and drugs, mostly marijuana, although Carina could be known to casually use ecstasy now and again. We spent our time in nightclubs and bars in countries all over the world. She loved the jet set…would pretend to live that lifestyle while she was trolling for a bedmate. She had random sex with strangers like I took showers.
That might not be fair to say. I sound judgmental, and I would never claim to be. We were all doing that job for our own reasons, and we all had our own methods for how to deal with it. After a time, no matter who you are, it will take its toll. I withdrew into myself. They called me the Ice Queen. It was fine, because that was what I wanted…to freeze my insides, so I wouldn't have to feel anything in this miserable existence. In that same way, Carina used sex to deal with it.
Carina, at 23, had more sexual partners than she could even tell me. She tried once, while she was drunk, to recall them all. I think the number was close to 50, but she said she knew she was forgetting some. I made it a point to tell her nothing. I don't believe I would have ever heard the end of it if she had learned my number at 23 was only one.
She slept with her male partners as well as mission adjacent contacts when the mission was over. She would pick up men anywhere and everywhere. She had sex in the bathrooms at nightclubs. Once, she had sex on the dance floor, standing up, surrounded by throngs of other people. She slept with her marks, which was abhorrent to me. But to her, it was just sex. She even told me sometimes the really horrible criminals, the ones in the drug cartels she was tasked with bringing down, fucked the best. She liked it rough. Fucking a brutal killer was the epitome of rough. It made me sick and a little frightened, but I never judged her. This life was very hard…not for the meek.
My time with the CAT squad lasted two and a half years. Carina made it her job to try and thaw out the Ice Queen. I made it easier for her than I should have.
I can't retell parts of this because, like I said, I don't remember huge pieces of it. Too much alcohol, sometimes spiked with drugs. If I had to guess, I probably did have sex at least once. It wasn't habitual, of that I'm certain. The number could be as high as three more…but at least I'm certain it's not more than that. I guess we were all young and stupid at some point–it's just the level and severity of the stupidity that varies.
My husband was never that wild or crazy. Well, he might disagree, but it was different. His young-and-stupid was what he told me is called white hacking…where he would break into security-protected systems just to see if he could, without stealing or manipulating data in anyway. Still illegal, but more Robinhood-ish, at least that was how he explained it to me. He was vague at first, as vague as I was about my past, but I sort of had an idea. I didn't know the full extent until his best friend, Morgan, told me. I'll get to that as well. All in all, it was pretty mild. He only drank at college after he turned 21. He only had sex with his girlfriend his entire stay at Stanford, and no one else again until five years later, with the same girl.
Those years in the CAT squad were the worst time in my life…because of the poor decisions I made. There were worse times ahead, far worse, but punctuated with individual moments. My early 20s were so bad because I lost control of myself. I lost my focus, and instead of using my self-isolation to protect me from thinking about the life I was living, I used Carina's methods, at least the ones she used in her early 20s. She eventually softened on the alcohol and smoking, just not about having sex. Then, I was headed for disaster, unequipped to deal with that lifestyle the way Carina was. She didn't cause the downward spiral, but she certainly pulled me down faster. Ironically fitting that she was then the one who pulled me out again.