Summary: Sloane listens tries to listen to his better angels. Shame he doesn't have any. PostNocturne. Short POV...Brought this bad boy back, explanation inside ; )

Disclaimer: It's on my user page folks.

Warning: Some graphic implied storylines and some bad language but it's all good otherwise.

A/N: I don't think this was given a fair chance to be seen as story and so long as I have ONE review at least, explaining why no one at all read this then I'll be satisfied and I'll let sleeping dogs do their sleeping. Or whatever the saying goes.


Arvin Sloane is a humanitarian; a good-will ambassador, a part of the great heroic police force of America-the CIA. He's even a father. He's one of the good guys now.

Well. He thinks.


He knows Sydney hates him. He can see the repulsion; the loathing and no amount of winsome smiles will change that. Sometimes her hate makes him age with weariness, makes him sad and he becomes all too aware of the vast gulf between them ever widening with every day she sets eyes on him. Other times he wants to beat that self righteous, stubborn, petulance out of her.
Dixon is vitriolic and volatile. He is likely to erupt at any time. Sloane figures that it is Dixon's patriotism that keeps him alive for so long. He almost felt that Dixon had forgiven him, but he mistook the man's fair, patient nature as friendship and was strongly rebuked.
Marshall and Weiss, they barely warrant a thought, they seem to be fairly indifferent to him…or what he was…or is.

Jack Bristow sadly isn't. Arvin has never tried to understand Jack; he's a vague, dark, stoic man with a life that has made him emotionally crippled and alienating. He's also-a close first with his volatile daughter-Arvin's greatest enemy. Although it seems he is in Jack's favour at the moment he never quite trusts him. Even when they were friends, he never truly believed he could turn his back on Jack Bristow and not pay for it.


Nadia…Nadia is different. He hasn't met anyone with such an unbiased opinion on him. She respects him and treats him like her father. He can't treat her like his daughter though, when the only daughter he ever truly wanted was Sydney.


He's tried so hard to tell himself that this is his life now, that he can be good. That he's changed for the better. Secretly he can feel his true self, the one he thinks has long since died, clawing inside him. Desperate to be released, hungry for the power and respect he once so easily claimed. He's yearning for that fear that would fill anyone in his presence; his name was enough to strike terror in people's hearts.


Now?

Now he's pathetic, old, clinging to the CIA to bring him some semblance of authority and reverence. If he had truly had that he wouldn't have had to suffer the humiliation of Dixon's harsh rebuff earlier in silence. Dixon would have been dead. He should have died. For taking away the only woman Arvin truly loved.

Tired and weak he sits in his large black armchair and tries to suppress his feelings of rage and hate. He tries to listen to his better angels, but the truth is…he doesn't have any.