CHARMING'S AUTHORS NOTE #1: Welcome back everyone! Considering the stats don't fucking work anymore, there is no point in staying up until midnight pacific time. I used to do it so that I could gauge the views in the first 24 hours... but that's pointless now. Because of that, here's the chapter a full four hours early. *Shrugs*
CHARMING'S AUTHORS NOTE #2: The continued positive reviews is really humbling, I really appreciate all of you for taking time out of your day to read my work. I'm glad that so many of you bought into Sarah's change in the second chapter, I was incredibly worried about the reception to all of that. This chapter will allow us to begin to not only move the plot along, but to dig deeper into this world that I've got for all of you.
CHARMING'S AUTHORS NOTE #3: Thanks to the amazing nevr for helping me with the beta of this story. Thanks for the help Nev!
The Monster You Made Me
A Story by
CharmingCharles2896
Chapter Three
To Those Lost or Abandoned
Phoenix, Arizona
August 9th, 2023
8:45 AM PDT
After almost a six-hour drive to Phoenix, Sarah silently drove the three of them to a lonely storage facility on the edge of town. The facility was large, metal buildings with sliding metal doors in long lines stretching on and on. 'Empire Storage' adorned the metal gate ahead of them in large green letters. The sign looked old, much like the rest of the facility, then again that was likely why Sarah had chosen it to store her items. Punching in the five-digit code to open the gate, Sarah watched the large, iron gate roll out of the way. Sarah hadn't been to this particular storage unit in several years, so she had no idea what kind of condition the storage unit was going to be in when she opened the door. Chuck watched Sarah drive silently through the facility, as if it was something she'd done a thousand times. Eventually, Sarah stopped their car in front of unit number twenty-two and put the car in park.
Sarah turned to Chuck and spoke quickly. "Stay in the car, Chuck." Sarah saw her charge nod, so she left the car and walked to the large metal door. Going to the lock, Sarah entered the code for the lock and removed it. Sliding the door up, Sarah looked for the light switch on the wall. Turning the lights on, revealed a menagerie of guns, ammo, spy gear, all manner of items a spy might need. Before she did anything, Sarah went around the unit and checked all of her various mouse and rat traps, finding nothing, which was a relief. Refocusing on her task, Sarah turned in place to find the duffle bags she'd stacked up in a corner. Sarah grabbed one of the duffle bags and began her work.
Firstly, Sarah grabbed three bullet-proof vests, one of which was comically tiny, clearly for children. Sarah had bought it on a whim from an Israeli arms company, wanting to be prepared in case she ever found herself in a situation not unlike the one she was currently in. After the vests, Sarah grabbed a rifle in a large, plastic gun case as well as magazines for said rifle. Turning her attention to other matters, Sarah grabbed a first aid kit that she'd prepared years ago, small as it was. The last thing she needed to pack was maybe the most important thing, money. Sarah opened a small safe and grabbed several stacks of cash, thick rubber bands around them. Knowing the denominations of the bills she'd grabbed, Sarah had almost a quarter of a million dollars in her duffle bag, more than enough to bride her way out of any mess if needed.
Looking away from his spy protector, Chuck glanced over his shoulder to check on his daughter. Molly was sound asleep in her car seat. It had been a long night for the two of them and unlike her father, Molly had actually been able to manage some sleep. Chuck had tried, but the entire situation was too much and he found himself unable to rest his mind. Looking back over towards Sarah, Chuck saw the blonde stripping out of her black mission outfit in front of a rack of clothing. Chuck knew he should look away, but her beauty was something else and he found himself transfixed by her. Sarah's muscular shoulders and the general fitness of her body was remarkable, considering she looked so thin in her mission outfit. Even from a distance of ten feet or more, Chuck could see the large scarring on Sarah's right shoulder blade. He couldn't be sure, but the scars looked to be from lashing, brutal stuff. Seeing those scars, made Chuck wonder what kind of life a woman like this lived.
Sarah was so young, yet she was a deadly assassin, one that Chuck had read a lot about, as it turned out. Agent Sarah Walker was a feared name in the CIA, nobody more notorious than her. Seeing this woman, he had a hard time believing she was capable of some of the horrible things he'd read about during his digging for evidence against Graham. Sarah Walker had lived in the shadows, dealing out pain and death for a little over seven years at this point. Knowing how young she looked, he couldn't help but wonder how a woman like her even got into the spy business.
Sarah's lower half was obscured by stacks of items. Her plain, white bra was all the showed in the florescent light of the storage unit. Lost in thought as he was, Chuck never even noticed as Sarah reached behind her and unclasped her bra, dropping it on the ground beside her. Reaching out, Sarah grabbed the matching bra and pantie set she had on the rack and changed into them. After her change of underwear, Sarah slipped into a pair of pants that Chuck couldn't see, as well as a white blouse and a brown jacket. Turning in place, Sarah grabbed a pair of shoes off of a rack of all different kinds of footwear, and slipped them on. Chuck looked away before she turned back towards him again.
Moments later, the storage unit door had been closed and locked. The rear passenger side door opened and Sarah gently deposited her duffle bag full of stuff onto the seat beside Molly as well as a large gun case. Closing the door, Sarah walked around the front of the car and entered. After seeing Sarah in her mission gear for so long, Chuck was rather struck by how beautiful she was in street clothes. Sarah started the car and took off, quickly getting them back on the road.
After several minutes of silence, Sarah spoke up. "Did you get a good look?" Chuck looked at Sarah, confused by her question.
"What?" he asked, confusion all over his face. Sarah looked over at Chuck and gave him a knowing look, one brow raised, making him blush. "Sorry, forgot that you're a spy," Chuck said as a blush overtook his features. Sarah laughed to herself at Chuck's blush.
"Don't worry about it; you're not the first man who's watched me change, won't be the last I assure you."
"No, I shouldn't have done that, I was raised better than that," Chuck said softly, before a large yawn tore through him. Sarah glanced over at Chuck in the middle of his yawn, his open maw reminiscent of a lion at the zoo. Sarah chuckled to herself as she watched him briefly before refocusing.
"Can I ask you a personal question?" Chuck asked softly as they continued to make their way through traffic.
"Sure, I guess," Sarah said nervously, hating personal questions. Chuck picked up on her apprehension, but was too curious not to ask.
"Those scars on your back," Chuck began before he saw a stormy look in Sarah's eyes, fixated on the road as they were. "If you don't want to talk about it that's fine, I was just-" Chuck said before Sarah stuck a hand up to stop him and began to speak.
"Seven years ago, I was a rookie agent; green as can be. I was arrogant, head strong after breezing through training at the Farm. One of my first assignments was a joint NSA/CIA operation in the States, trying to flush out some suspected terrorist activity in Nevada." Sarah's eyes looked a thousand miles away as she spoke.
"I was partnered up with two NSA agents, a married couple as strange as that sounds," Sarah with a slight laugh as she remembered the events of so long ago. "We had just finished surveilling our targets, a trio of Saudi men who'd recently arrived from Afghanistan. We were getting ready to move in and arrest them; but I was stupid and wanted all of their notes and files, all of it. I went out on my own and snuck into their place, a crappy house outside Reno. I didn't have much of a plan, I figured that I was better than them, so who cared, right? When I got into the house, there were more than the original three men, there were nine of them. I was hopelessly outnumbered and while I fought them off for a long while, they eventually got me. I lost consciousness after one of them threw me through a wall."
"Oh god," Chuck muttered, a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"I don't know how they smuggled me out of that house, but they got me to a separate place, far from people. They wanted to know why I'd been watching them, who else was out there, the typical stuff. They beat me for hours before the leader of them got frustrated and changed tactics. I was uh…" Sarah trailed off as the bad memories flooded back. Chuck had never seen someone have a flashback before and he didn't know what to do.
"They stripped me naked and chained be up in the middle of a basement. I was sure they were about to rape me, but the leader pulled out one of those old, medieval cat o' nine tails, things." Chuck paled as he understood what was coming. "I screamed so loud, for hours, but they didn't stop. They hit me with that thing a hundred times, maybe a thousand, I lost count after two hours. At some point, they got frustrated with my refusal to break and gave up on the lashing. My Arabic isn't great, but I understood the wood for battery, so I knew electricity was coming. Thankfully, the NSA agents showed up with a swat team and rescued me before the men came back to finish with me." Chuck thought he was going to be sick, her story one of the worst things he'd ever heard.
"I'm sorry for asking," Chuck said softly, looking a little green.
"Graham was so angry with me," Sarah said in a tone that oozed anger and humiliation. "He wasn't mad because I went off mission, nor because I got caught, but because the scarring on my shoulder meant I would never be able to seduce anyone. In his mind, the scars were grotesque and ruined my looks. In that moment, I learned a number of lessons about my job and the man who recruited me. Most women in my position would have left field work after something like what I went through, but I was just angry. I vowed never to go off half-cocked like that again, I became meticulous, obsessive about preparation."
"It made you the best of the best," Chuck said quietly. Sarah looked over at Chuck, seeing the faraway look in his eyes. Sarah could only nod in the face of Chuck's words, unsure if that was a compliment or not, given all she'd done.
"We've got a long drive ahead of us, so you should get some sleep," Sarah said before she yawned as well.
"Where are we going?" Chuck asked.
"Denver, I know someone there who can help us get to Fort Meade, Maryland without detection," Sarah said calmly.
Settling down into his seat to sleep, Chuck spoke softly; "Beckman, right."
~X~
Flagstaff, Arizona
August 9th, 2023
10:32 AM MDT
In the two or so hours since their stop in Phoenix, Sarah had gotten some good, hard driving in. Chuck and Molly had both slept the entire time, which was a relief. The weight of Sarah's decisions had begun to sink in as the miles ticked off. Sarah Walker was rogue, off the reservation, AWOL. One of the most feared and respected members of the CIA was rogue. She'd just told Chuck about her never going off half-cocked, but if this whole thing wasn't going off half-cocked, then nothing was! If Beckman didn't believe the story Sarah was about to dump in her lap, she'd be arrested, as would Chuck. Molly would be taken from her father, who would likely be murdered in prison by someone on Langston's payroll. She'd get dealt with as well, her body dumped somewhere nobody would find it. Sarah had everything to lose and nothing to gain, yet she was doing this anyway. The mental image of her strangling Molly scared her, the idea that she could do something like that, unthinkable.
"Where are we?" came a small voice directly behind Sarah. In that moment, Sarah's heart began to race. Glancing over at Chuck, Sarah could see that he was still dead to the world. That didn't surprise Sarah, he'd been up all night like she had.
"We are in Flagstaff, Arizona, Sweetie," Sarah said as she continued to drive.
"Who are you?" Molly asked next.
"Uh… my name is Sarah, I'm a friend of your dad's," Sarah said nervously.
"Where are we going?" Molly asked in what Sarah knew was going to be an avalanche of questions.
"We uh, we are going on an adventure!" Sarah said in faux excitement. As soon as the word adventure came out of her mouth, she was bombarded by recollections of her own 'adventures' with her own father. She'd idolized her father as a young child, loved his free, unrestrained lifestyle. Of course, as she got older and became a larger part of his cons, her desire for his approval grew and grew. Her value grew or shrank in his eye based on how successful they were. She learned early on to push the emotions down, push the loneliness away. Learning how to compartmentalize her depression as a child had kept her alive as a spy. Molly was so innocent and her father was a good man, a real father. Listening to the voice of Molly, the pure innocence within it, Sarah couldn't help but envy that child.
"I'm hungry, what's for breakfast?"
"I don't know, Sweetie, I…" Sarah stopped as a sign on the horizon caught her eye. Golden arches on the horizon, shone like a beacon to all who are hungry. A small smile crept onto Sarah's face.
"McDonald's to the rescue," she mused as she flipped on her turn signal and left the freeway.
~X~
Sitting next to a four-year-old as said four-year-old enjoyed some oatmeal and a hashbrown was not how Sarah Walker envisioned spending her Tuesday morning. The Sausage and Egg McMuffin that Sarah was currently enjoying tasted better than she'd thought it would. The Orange Juice she'd paired with her breakfast reminded of her younger years on the road with her father.
"How's your food?" Sarah asked Molly who looked up at Sarah and smiled. "Tastes good?" Molly nodded quickly. "Good." The sound of footsteps grabbed Sarah's attention. Looking up, Sarah spotted a sleepy-looking Chuck walking back towards them from the bathroom. Chuck had been groggy as hell when Sarah had awoken him and he'd muttered about freshening up in the bathroom while Sarah ordered. Watching the tired man sit down in the booth across from Sarah and Molly, Sarah saw him looking at the two of them. As Chuck looked at them, he couldn't help but admit that Sarah and Molly looked remarkably similar; it was kind of scary.
"I feel drugged, I haven't been this bad in the morning since college," Chuck said sleepily.
"It's fine, Chuck, it was a rough night," Sarah said to Chuck as she pushed a coffee towards him, as well as the bag of food.
"No coffee for you?" Chuck asked as he reached into the bag and pulled out the Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle that he'd asked Sarah to order for him. Sarah shook her head as she chewed her food.
After swallowing, Sarah spoke, "No caffeine, I need to get some sleep during the next leg of our drive. You're going to take over the driving from here to either Cortez or Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Depending on how you're feeling, you can wake me up at either one and I'll take over the rest of the driving to Denver." Chuck simply nodded and dug into his breakfast. Setting her food down in its wrapper, Sarah slid out of the booth and stood.
"I'll be back, please don't leave this booth until I return," Sarah said to Chuck, who gave a thumbs up and continued feasting on his greasy delight. Chuck watched Sarah walk away towards the bathroom. Turning his attention back towards his daughter, Chuck gave her a smile.
"How are you, Mollybear?" Molly gave him a toothy smile, filled with hashbrown.
"Sarah let me have a hashbrown!" Molly replied excitedly before taking another bite of the golden-brown deliciousness.
"I see that," Chuck said with a fatherly smile.
"Sarah said she's your friend, I thought Uncle Morgan was your friend?" Molly asked without thinking, her attention now fixated on her oatmeal and the chunks of apple within it. Chuck didn't know what to say to that revelation. On the one hand, Sarah was someone sent to kill him and his daughter, but she'd chosen to help him instead. Sarah seemed nice enough and she was ravishingly beautiful, but Chuck really didn't know what to think of her.
"Uncle Morgan is my friend, Sarah's just a new friend," Chuck said diplomatically.
"I miss Mommy," Molly said out of nowhere, surprising Chuck. The lurch in his chest consumed him, as the sudden shift in conversation took him by surprise. Chuck looked away from his daughter, who's looks always reminded him of his darling Nora.
It had all started with a headache. Nora had a headache that wouldn't go away, no matter what she took. Motrin, Aleve, Tylenol, none of them worked. Ellie even called in a script for some migraine medications, Nurtec, but that didn't work either. Chuck took his wife to the E.R. worried sick after Ellie had told him to take her in if the Nurtec didn't work. Chuck didn't remember all of the tests they ran on Nora; the whole day was a blur. All Chuck could remember was the look on the E.R. doctor's face when he reentered the room. Somehow Chuck had known even before the doc had spoken, it was cancer. Doctor Hayes had tried to assuage them, saying it might not be, they were sending out for second opinions. Talking to Ellie about it afterwards was hard. Ellie wasn't a cancer doctor, but she did specialize in the brain and the type of cancer that Sarah had was aggressive and far more advanced than was favorable. No chemo or radiation was taking care of the two golf-ball-sized tumors in Nora's brain.
The doctors said it was possible to operate, but the risks of neurological damage were great and the ten-year survivability rate was only 30%. Chuck and Nora spent two weeks talking it over, before deciding to go ahead with the surgery. When they'd returned to their cancer doctors, to relay the decision, more tests were ordered to confirm. The tests discovered seven more tumors in Nora's lungs, liver, and breast tissue. They'd said they could get the tumors out of her breasts, but she'd lose them. They said they could get the tumor out of her lungs, but she'd have impaired breathing for the rest of her life. The doctors said they could get the tumors from Nora's liver, but the remaining sections of her liver may not function properly and she'd likely need a replacement in the future. Nora said no, devastating Chuck. Nora said she wasn't going to live her life like that, cut up and crippled in her twenties. Chuck begged Nora to fight, but she said she didn't want to live the last few months of her life fighting a battle she wasn't going to win.
The following three months were bittersweet for the Bartowski family. Molly didn't understand and Chuck was struggling with his own feelings. In the three months after Nora gave up on fighting, she slowly withered away, seemingly at peace with her choice until one morning, on November 10th, she simply didn't wake up. She died, snuggled in beside Chuck, where she belonged. In the ten months that had followed, Chuck had renewed his efforts to be a present father for Molly. The grief over Nora's passing hadn't crippled Chuck like some had feared, instead it merely hollowed him out, took something from him that Nora had helped forge. Chuck tried to move on, tried to continue his life, but the persistent ache of Nora's absence was always just under the surface. Life with Nora had been a panorama of vivid colors, life at its most vibrant. Life without Nora was dull grey, merely pastel at its most vibrant.
"I do too, Mollybear, every day," Chuck said quietly, finally replying to his daughter's declaration. The food before Chuck tasted bland now, soiled by wicked memory. Though his appetite had left him, Chuck continued to eat, knowing it could be a while before his next meal.
In the bathroom, Sarah was too busy freaking out to dry her hands. What was she doing? The question kept buzzing around in her head, what was she doing? She wanted to save them, but the uncertainty she was feeling wouldn't leave her alone. For so long Sarah had wronged the world, taken everything under the sun. Life, love, passion, the whole gamut of existence had been stolen or snuffed out by Jack Wilson's daughter, Langston Graham's enforcer. She loved her father, yet was willing to forsake him for these people, why?
Why had Sarah chosen this moment to change? For years, she'd skated by, shirking any semblance of morals, until last night. A general feeling of malaise and discontent had loomed over her for years, but never this strongly. That family out there was strong in the face of loss, united in their desire to forge ahead with life. Sarah had never met people like Chuck Bartowski, those with moral courage. Last night may have been the first time in Sarah's life where she'd found some moral courage of her own.
The thing was, moral courage alone wasn't going to keep them safe when the heavens and the hells began to rain down upon them. Could Sarah embrace the violence and death, the darkness she kept caged up within herself, to keep someone else alive? She sure hoped so, because to fail here, to let those two die, would end her. The death of such innocence was a fate worse than her own demise, the ultimate destruction of the hope that things can be better. If all that life could ever be was darkness and death, then where did that leave Sarah? Hours ago, Sarah had left the darkness behind, the Rubicon had been crossed. There was no longer a home for her in the shadows, yet the light seemed completely out of reach.
Could Sarah find redemption through this act of moral courage? Was it even possible for someone so completely consumed by death and horror, to be redeemed? Looking into the mirror, Sarah wasn't sure any longer. Nothing that she'd relied on to steady herself still stood beside her. There were no guiding principles, nothing from before could be relied upon to center her troubled mind. Looking at herself, Sarah did not recognize the woman she saw. All Sarah saw was a murderer, a tool used to take lives, not a person.
Sarah knew she had to save them both, there was no room for failure any longer. To fail Chuck and Molly, to let them fall into Graham's hands, might just be the last betrayal of Sarah's soul. Like a scared animal trying to claw their way out of a rushing river, to fail now, to lose her grip, would mean the permanent destruction of her soul.
"Please, let me save someone, just this one time," Sarah muttered as she looked down from the mirror to her wet hands, the water still running in the sink. "I don't care what happens to me anymore; just help me save them." No answer came from heaven above, nor hell below, silence. Sarah was alone in this world and it would have to be her alone, who saved Chuck and Molly. Shutting the water off, Sarah reached for a paper towel to dry her hands.
Exiting the bathroom, Sarah saw Chuck and Molly, exactly where she left them. Chuck looked troubled; his face was cloudy, dark. Molly, the beacon of joy and innocence, was oblivious to the world, as it should be. Molly looked over towards the bathroom and saw Sarah, vigorously waving to her with a bright smile. The bright smile, someone actually happy to see her, it warmed her troubled heart. No matter what happened, Molly Bartowski was going to walk away from this, even if it killed Sarah.
~X~
People's West African Socialist Republic
August 10th, 2023
1:49 AM GMT+0
She had to cover ground, gain distance from the scene of the crime. Fatima Tazi wasn't normally used for this type of assignment by Graham, but with his pet blonde on assignment, he'd turned to her. Her Moroccan ancestry likely had a hand in his selection, even though she was nothing like the people the tiny, communist shit hole that was the West African Socialist Republic. Crowds all around Tazi were a hive of frantic activity, the public seemingly to cry in collective anguish at the death of their two-bit communist dictator.
Tazi had done her job well. The tiny needle in Tazi's palm had administered the poison the second she'd touched Premier Mohammad Fazir Zarawi on the arm. She'd disappeared into the crowd, but the poison had acted faster than she would have liked and the Premier collapsed almost instantly. The Premier's security had seen her and gave chase. Now, several minutes later, Tazi was trying to flee to the border with Mauritania, twenty miles to the north of her. This plan had perils of its own, but it beat getting raped to death by a horde of angry, African communists.
At the present moment, Tazi was in a clapped out, eighties vintage Mercedes Benz, screaming down poorly maintained, dirt roads. The capital of the tiny, communist country was Wongela, a largely dirt-poor city, filled with insurgent militias loosely loyal to the Premier. The longer Tazi drove, the more militia activity she was seeing around her; they were looking for her. If Tazi could get out of the city, just another two miles, she could head north across the flat, barren desert to the tiny, Mauritanian border village of Nédal. That part of Mauritania was largely controlled by Salafist Jihadists, but Tazi was more concerned with getting the hell out of Socialist West Africa.
When a technical, mounting a 12.7mm DshK, rolled out into the street in front of Tazi, she slammed onto the breaks to make a frantic left turn. "Shit!" Tazi screamed as the deafening bark of heavy machine gun fire shattered the relative calm around them. Glass shattered as massive .12.7 mm bullets tore holes in Tazi's car. Dodging a gaggle of militia in the street with AKMs and RPKs, Tazi took a right turn to get back in the right direction, north.
"It'll be easy, shoot in and out, nothing you can't handle," Tazi muttered to herself, replaying Graham's words to her after he'd explained his suicidal assignment to her. "Cake walk my ass!" Tazi scream angrily as an RPG screamed past her car. She'd really stirred up a hornets nest this time and she wondered if that was Graham's idea. In that moment, Tazi began to wonder if Graham had tried to get rid of her by sending her on a suicide mission. The issue with that thought was the possibility for Tazi to get caught and public executed or worse. Tazi was a CIA agent and it wouldn't be long before the global media learnt who she really was, which would be embarrassing for Graham. No, Graham didn't want to dispose of her, he was just arrogant enough to believe that his Enforcers could do the impossible. Agent Walker did what seemed impossible on a regular basis, skewing Graham's perception of acceptable risk to the extreme.
"Fucking Walker," Tazi grumbled distractedly. In that moment, an RPG from a rooftop ahead of her came screaming towards her car. Tazi saw the rocket mere moments before it impacted the front of her car. The explosion was massive, tearing the car apart and throwing her over eight feet away. Tazi screamed out in pain as she landed, flipping herself onto her back. Looking around her, countless militia were approaching firing guns in the air in celebration. Tazi tried to stand up, but couldn't. The pain she was feeling was immense, the CIA assassin unable to feel her legs. Tazi looked down at herself only to see that her left foot was missing, as well as her right leg above her knee, likely from the RPG's impact. Tazi laid back, knowing this was the end, her life was going to end right here.
In Fatima Tazi's final moments, she thought about the son she'd abandoned so long ago. Leaving him with his father so that she could become one of Graham's Enforcers was her biggest regret. Tazi's son would have been almost ten years old by now; she wondered where he was, what he was doing. Was he thinking of her? As Tazi faded away, she hoped her baby boy thought well of her.
CHARMING'S AUTHORS NOTE #4: An Enforcer has fallen! What does this mean for the players in this entire situation? Tell me what all of you think this means for our intrepid adventurers. If you have other thoughts, then please consider leaving a review as well. I love reading what all o you think of the latest chapter and what all of you think is coming next.
CHARMING'S AUTHORS NOTE #5: The fourth chapter will be released on Thursday, November 9th, 2023!
Until Next Time :D
