She laid back, her right forearm next to her shoulder, and glanced at her wrist watch.
At least seven more minutes.
Sighing, Sydney rubbed her knuckles absently against the smooth, cool pillowcase next to her head, willing herself to be patient. God knows, patience wasn't really her strong suit.
The pillow under her hips made her middle back ache, and she doubled her knees up to her chest to release the tension. She remained rolled like a ball, her arms around her shins, and felt the knot in her back begin to ease.
Fifteen minutes like this at least, the doctor had said, would help. Michael was already in the shower, the hiss of the water filling the bathroom and spilling out into the master bedroom.
She stared at the shaft of light on the ceiling, streaming in through the southern window. It would be an agonizing drive to work this morning; sun delays made the LA freeways crawl.
Lucky bastard, she thought, listening to him splashing in the shower. It wasn't that she disliked the act, but she liked to clean up right away, too—didn't like the sticky wetness between her legs, at the top of her thighs. And she hated lying still after sex; it made her anxious, like a caged animal. She usually had the urge to fight someone after a good fuck.
If you could even call that fucking, she thought meanly. He had been so… tender lately. It was not their way; she longed to slap him, have him bite her nipples, to claw at his back. There had been many days when she'd put her concealer on him to hide the bruises she'd left. This waiting had changed them, and she wasn't sure it was for the better.
5 more minutes.
Michael, hurry up, she thought, as she absently traced her fingers over the scar on her lower right abdomen. When had she started thinking of him as 'Michael'? She hadn't called him that before. Even after they had gotten together, she thought of him as Vaughn. Like she was one of the guys, one of the team--the kind of men who didn't have first names.
The shower stopped, and after some brief rustling that she assumed to be his toweling off, he appeared in the doorway to the bathroom.
"Hey," he said, grinning a little, "You holding up there?"
"Yeah," she replied, and tried to smile at him. She could feel her smile, a little too wane, and she looked away.
"Awwww," he crooned, sliding back under the covers with her with his towel on, "It's not that bad, is it? It's worth it- it'll be worth it, in the end." He looked at her, and kissed her temple before rolling away.
Two more minutes.
They listened to his iPod in the car, mostly guys-with-guitars stuff—David Grey, Jack Johnson, some Dave Matthews. The commute from their home was longer than it had been from either of their apartments, but she had grown used to it over the last couple years.
God, years, she thought, when we used to live so day-to-day. From when he had been her lifeline to sanity, meeting in that dank self storage unit to discuss her counter missions against SD-6, the fleeting glances, the words left unsaid, to this. This… normalcy.
It was, she mused, as normal as the life of two agents probably could be. To his mother, they were happy, bright, college-educated 30-somethings with a house in the 'burbs who'd met at their boring government jobs at State. Sydney didn't think it really matter to Mrs. Vaughn, what they did; they had two incomes, were upwardly mobile, and she finally had someone else to love, someone to replace Bill in the little triangle of their family that had been split apart when Michael was a child. Little did she know it was Sydney's own mother who'd murdered her precious Bill. That part she and Michael kept to themselves.
As John Mayer sang, "Was there a second in time I looked around, did I sail through or drop my anchor down, was anything enough to kiss the ground, and say 'I'm here now'1" Sydney wondered briefly how a woman as dull as Michael's mother could have been married to his father- an agent himself- and produced a son as cunning as her husband. What was this song called? Clarity, she discovered after a glance at the iPod's scrolling screen. What a joke. Her mood was far more aggressive than this pop song. Pent up sexual tension, she told herself.
She sat up and turned the radio on instead; the classic rock station was tuned in. The plucky beat of a guitar tugged at her memory, and as she heard the words, "I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way2" she remembered—Sark.
That day up in the foothills- this song had been playing on her radio- trying to run him off the road in his Mercedes. He'd been so cocksure.
No need to worry, Sydney- we're colleagues nowi
She'd warned him- a warning that had, in the coming years, gone both unheeded and unfulfilled:
You burn me, I burn you.
So far though, it had been the other way around. Over and over again, until he'd disappeared, leaving Anna Espinoza in their custody nearly three years ago. Just like that jerk to leave his gal in the lurch, but she smiled at the memory.
Hope you have got your things together, hope you are quite prepared to die—looks like we're in for nasty weather, one eye is taken for an eye…
Sydney stowed her thoughts as they pulled into the cool darkness of the underground parking garage.
At their desks, they sorted emails and read briefs, occasionally exchanging glances of "This is some boring shit" with each other. She looked up from her monitor to rest her eyes, and she could feel some wetness between her thighs still, in her underwear. Damn, she hated that. When his cum ran out of her and made her underwear soggy? Hated it, she gritted her teeth.
"Sydney."
She jumped and turned to find her father standing over her with a black leather folder in his hand, embossed on the cover with the CIA logo.
"Did I… interrupt you?" he asked quietly.
"No!" she said, a little too quickly. She was slightly embarrassed that her dad had interrupted her thoughts about how she should go to the bathroom and wipe her crotch; she wasn't entirely sure he couldn't hear her very thoughts, sometimes. "It's fine- what's up?"
"We're having a briefing on some new intel we've just received from MI-5," he replied, "Be in the main conference room at 10 sharp."
"Right," she scribbled a note to herself, and turned back to the screen.
MI-5. British equivalent of the FBI. Usually they heard only from MI-6. Weird.
Her father proceeded to Vaughn's desk, and delivered what she assumed to be the same message. Her father… tolerated Vaughn. He'd grudgingly given his blessing to Vaughn, when Vaughn had asked for her hand in marriage. Marshall had filled her in later on how nervous Vaughn had been, ducking and dodging Marshall's attempts to horn in on their meeting.
"I'm so, like, DENSE," Marshall had waved his hands, "It's really, y'know, WEIRD how sometimes people can be really smart, like Einstein-smart, not just like, Bill Gates-smart- not that I'm comparing myself to Einstein in any way, shape or form- or Bill Gates, either—and be so dumb with… y'know, people stuff."
She'd nodded and smiled, then given him a hug. He was still a sweetie.
Now she wondered briefly why Vaughn had been nervous to ask her father to marry her- after all they'd been through. Sure, her dad could be a little condescending- ok, a LOT condescending- but Vaughn had done enough to earn his respect.
There was still time to run to the bathroom before they had to meet. She slipped into the ladies' room, into a stall and shoved her black pantyhose down.
They turned their attention to Jack when he rose from his leather chair at the head of the conference table.
"Yesterday at o-two-hundred hours," her father began, "Security cameras at London-Gatwick Airport picked up this man on their surveillance tapes in baggage."
The individual in the glossy still from the grainy security camera had on a baseball hat and mirrored-lens sunglasses. He wore a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, Adidas running shoes. It could've been anyone, any college student or miscellaneous piece of Euro trash copying David Beckham's metro sexual look, Sydney thought, except…
Sark. She immediately recognized him by his crooked lower lip and arrogant bearing.
Her father looked right at her as he slowly pronounced, "Julian Sark."
"Who?" one of the younger agents asked timidly. They were all a little afraid of Jack.
"Sark," she breathed, feeling a weird déjà vu sensation in the pit of her stomach after hearing Bad Moon Rising on the radio that same morning, "Or Julian Lazarey, since that's his real name. Andrian Lazarey's son. Or Peter Garo, whatever he's calling himself these days."
"Lazarey's son…." The newbie trailed off. "You mean-"
"Yes," her father impatiently cut off the newbie, "that Lazarey." Although her "murder" of Lazarey was common knowledge about her missing two years at the hands of the Covenant, it was not really discussed. Most of the young agents hadn't yet grasped the intricacy of the whole Sark-Lazarey-Lauren-Sydney-Vaughn mess yet.
"I thought this guy was dead!" Weiss said in disbelief, "We haven't heard from him in three years."
"So, where is he now?" Vaughn finally spoke up.
"Wishful thinking, Agent Weiss," Jack replied, "MI-5 didn't get the tape until Sark was long gone. He could be anywhere. Best guess? He's gone back to England to finish up some unfinished business from his formative years there. As most of you know—" a pointed dig at the newbies who hated doing background research— "He attended a boarding school in western England, so we'll start there.
"Agent Weiss, pull all the files you can find on the boarding school, tuition payments, teacher names, grade reports, anything.
"Vaughn, I want you to coordinate with MI-5 to review surveillance feeds in and around Gatwick- the train stations, Tube, bus stations, taxi stands- maybe we can get a trace on where he's going, and where he's been."
"Sydney," his gaze fell on her, "You're feeling up to field work?"
"Of course," she said, steadily meeting his eyes. She hated showing weakness at work, especially in front of the newbies. They had no clue, anyway. "So I'm going after him?"
"Correct," Jack said his stare still steely, "It's a surveillance mission only. We don't have anything to bring him in on, but we want to find out where Mr. Sark has been these last years. We can bet it wasn't spent at a spa in Switzerland." Jack's lips twisted into a slow smile.
"Get to it," he dropped the smile.
Songs:
1 "Clarity." Heavier Things, John Mayer.
2 "Bad Moon Rising." Green River, Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Eps Quoted:
i Passage, Part I. Season 2, Episode 8. Written by Debra J. Fisher & Erica Messer.
