Title: Genesis
Author: Amy (pie) – pie_girly@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, please. The good, the bad, the ugly – bring it on.
Disclaimers: All the wonderful Alias characters are the property of JJA, Bad Robot, ABC et al.
Spoilers: Through S2.22 – The Telling
AN: For Karen T. who asked for some Jack and some Will for her birthday so many months ago. Thanks to Robin for the beta and Rez for the help with location details.
~*~*~*
It had been seven days, Jack realized suddenly. A week since that night. A week spent elbow-deep in physical evidence, theories from analysis, foreign intel, rage, guilt and pain. A week devoid of answers, devoid of workable clues. A week since he had answered Vaughn's call, arriving at an apartment that was unrecognizable. A week since Sydney disappeared.
His training ensured that he remembered every minute detail about the scene. Glass broken everywhere. From a table, from a door, from a mirror. A glittering trail of destruction. Kitchen utensils strewn across the floor in random piles of wood, plastic and metal. Blood spattered across furniture and smeared along the wooden floor. A drawer sitting on its end in the midst of the chaos.
There was only one body. When Jack saw it, he flashed back to another body in another bathtub. He had been too late then, but the paramedics standing over this body told Jack that he was still alive. Barely alive, but not Danny. Not dead. Just betrayed by the woman he thought of as a friend and a lover. Jack had personally checked Sydney's voicemail – the sound of Will's frantic message cut through him as much as he tried to prevent it.
Francie - kind, innocent Francie - dead. Sydney, Will, Jack, Vaughn – all duped by a woman with her face. As Jack stood alone, looking at the destruction wrought onto his daughter's apartment, watching the movements of the LAPD with a guarded expression, he let himself feel the hard edge of guilt for just a few moments. At some fundamental level, Jack felt that all of this – Francie, Will, Sydney – was the end result of decisions he had made. Some so far in the past, he cared not to examine them, but he owned them all the same.
The week had passed like this. Seven days spent in the swirling maelstrom of fact and emotion. Jack, Vaughn, Dixon and Marshall united together in sleepless hours of investigation, conjecture and frustration. No one went home. They slept in shifts, sharing a room in medical services. By the third day, someone, probably Dixon, forced a shower and shave into the rotation of activities.
Jack sat back in his chair in the conference room they had commandeered and stared at the files in front of him, willing them to provide him some clue as to where his daughter was. It was the seventh day, he reminded himself. Focus was essential. But no matter how much Jack tried to shield himself from feeling, he couldn't. Not with Sydney, never with Sydney.
Fact. Blood samples taken from the scene indicate that Ms. Sydney Bristow was present at the time of the incident. The amount of blood does not indicate a fatal wound, and the splatter pattern indicates the victim was moved shortly after the fight.
Rage. Sydney was missing, perhaps dead. Jack didn't need a report to suspect the work of Arvin Sloane. He vowed to find the man he once called his mentor and deliver unto him a painful, drawn-out death. It was not simply that Sloane was involved somehow with Sydney's disappearance; it was the fact that Arvin was the man who brought Sydney to this world. And for that, he would eventually pay.
Fact. The amount of blood pooled in the bathtub, coupled with reports from the EMTs, indicate that Mr. Will Tippin had been stabbed approximately 80 minutes before the LAPD arrived at the scene.
Guilt. Will Tippin was in intensive care, a ladder of stitches from bellybutton to sternum holding him together. Jack had brought Will into this world. When reminded quietly by Vaughn that Will had chosen this life for himself, Jack refused to listen. He was the one who had pushed him into the meeting in Paris. He was the one who had filled his veins full of heroin and left him for the police to find. He was the reason Will was no longer the naïve and inquisitive reporter, and instead was fighting for his life in intensive care.
Fact. Blood samples and fingerprints point to three separate victims in the apartment. Only one, Mr. Will Tippin, was found by the LAPD when they responded to the call. Ms. Sydney Bristow and a third, unidentified victim, are unaccounted for.
Pain. The identity of the third victim was classified Omega-17. The LAPD would never know that Allison Doren existed, but the CIA knew. It was a simple matter of backtracking through Will's analysis. It only took a few hours to make all the connections. Jack understood that his work decades ago had somehow led to this point in time. Sydney's best friend dead, her identity assumed by a girl assumed dead years before. All the unintended consequences of a project gone bad.
He reached for the cup of stale coffee sitting beyond the perimeter of files and photos that he had set out and tried to clear his mind once again. He could feel his body protest when the coffee hit his stomach, but he needed to pull himself out of his exhausted foray into the emotional canvas of Sydney's disappearance.
Emotions were disruptive, he reminded himself. The window of hope was closing, seven days had passed, and he could feel his grip on Sydney slipping further and further away. Taking another long pull of the cold coffee, he began to dissect his options. The time was coming where Kendall, Devlin and the rest of the politicians would decide that Sydney was missing and resources could be utilized elsewhere. He pushed his mind to run through the scenarios. This was his game. His world. Slow as he might be at the present moment, strategizing was his forte. Above all else, he needed to trust himself and his instincts. He closed his eyes, ignoring the hazy edges of exhaustion and opened his mind to the game.
~*~*~*
His first memory was of the color grey. The tendrils of light and darkness swirling together and laying like a light blanket over his mind. It was an opaque grey; the color of cold ocean depths and as dense as the London fog. When he awoke, all he remembered was a slate grey specter hanging over his memories, preventing him from recalling the trauma that had passed seven days previous.
Will Tippin woke on that seventh day to the steady hum and beep of machines and the foreign feel of an oxygen tube lodged in his nose. Momentarily blinded by the bright halogen lights reflecting off of white surfaces surrounding him, he took a few shallow breaths, pushing the tendrils of panic back and attempting a self-assessment. Most of his body was numb, but his eyes had adjusted enough to notice the IV placed above his thumb and the marks of veins now closed to use. Beyond the army of machines that surrounded him like sentinels, he noticed a man. No one he knew, or at least no one who he thought he knew. The haze was beginning to clear, but he still felt he was missing something.
He was in a hospital. But whose hospital?
He was obviously hurt. The numbness was not natural, nor were the machines.
The panic began to edge in again, his conscious recalling a similar disorientation that resulted in the loss of a few teeth and his baptism into the world of his best friend.
Memories flooded back and battled for control of Will's mind. He strained to capture the images that were flashing before him, but oblivion kept pulling him under. Charcoal blended with crimson as he acquiesced to the darkness.
~*~*~*
Kendall had ordered them home. Telling them that seven days of isolation wasn't productive nor efficient, he sent them on their way with orders not to return for at least twelve hours. Jack didn't fight the order. In fact, he didn't say anything. He just nodded his head slightly, stood up and walked out.
Jack knew that fighting Kendall was an inefficient use of energy. Plus, he wasn't sure that isolation and analysis was the best move at this stage of the game. Seven days gone and Sloane was surely edging beyond the grasp of traditional intelligence gathering organizations. Jack knew Arvin Sloane well enough to know that he would exploit the rules and resulting inefficiencies of the CIA to his advantage. And if Sloane was willing to break the traditional rules governing covert activities, as he had shown since taking down the Alliance, Jack needed to find a way around the rules also.
So he walked out without saying a word, without really acknowledging Vaughn, Dixon or Marshall and without a thought as to when he might return. His mind still occupied by various scenarios, he only half-paid attention to the act of backing his car out of his reserved space and then was momentarily shocked by the bright orange haze of the midday sun. A quick glance at the clock told him it was only 1pm. He felt like it should be later. The cover of darkness was definitely preferable to the way the LA sun intensified his surroundings, sharpening edges and erasing shadows. Out of the cover of his underground home, Jack felt oddly exposed, as if his presence aboveground would be noticed by many.
And perhaps it would be, he thought to himself as he steered his car through the clogged LA surface streets. Perhaps this was the way to get his side game up and running. He needed assets outside of the CIA. People who he could trust with both recon duties as well as analysis and perhaps extraction. The challenge would be running them while still working for the CIA. But he couldn't up and leave. Before Kendall barged in, Jack had decided that although going freelance fulltime was one of the options available to him, it was not the most prudent move. At least not at this stage of the game. The CIA still had money and resources that could be directed in the search for Sydney. Add that to some outside work Jack could commission, and he was confident he could track down Sloane.
Jack felt the heat of the summer day pulsating around him. The sun permeated the tinted windows of his Town Car, and he could feel the sweat trickling down his back. Seven days in a climate controlled environment had helped him forget the brutal assault of the Santa Ana. He grimaced and expediently made his way towards the Ventura Freeway. He needed to think and driving gave him something to do as his mind trolled back through all the various scenarios, motives and facts he had stored away.
As the high-rises and concrete of downtown LA slipped away to the strip malls and stucco of the Valley, Jack kept coming back to the one option he didn't care to explore. The strategist in him was convinced of its viability, but his stomach did a half turn at any exploration of the possibility. Jack the operative was faced with Jack the man, and unfortunately, past acts and indiscretions were not helpful guideposts.
She would betray him. She couldn't be trusted. She had seduced him again and then left him just as she had all those years before.
She loved her daughter. Hadn't he been the seducer this last time? He would be in control.
Both sides guilty of treachery. Both sides guilty of love.
She had given them Sloane. She had given them Sark.
Or she was playing her game just as she had when she turned herself into the CIA.
It was everything and nothing. The sum of all possibilities, finding Sloane, finding Sydney and the possibility of never seeing his daughter again, all wrapped up together.
The heat began to lessen as the neutral anonymity of the suburbs dropped away behind him. He knew he would fight the answer as long as he could, but he also knew the answer was unavoidable.
He wasn't at all surprised when his mobile phone rang and his wife's voice came over the line.
~*~*~*
When he woke again, pushing up through the dim edges of consciousness, he sensed someone there, next to him. Something cool lay on his arm. Gradually pulling his eyelids open, he allowed the light to flood in, his mind adjusting to the sudden contrasts in his surroundings. It was a hand on his arm, a woman's hand. Slowly, so slowly, he moved his eyes along her forearm, past the sleeve of her shirt and to her face.
Amy. His sister. Here with him.
Again the assault of questions and images. Flashes of red and the memory of a burning pain. What happened to him? Was he still in LA? He tried to form the questions but the connection between his mind and his mouth wasn't working. He felt stuck, trapped.
Amy had noticed he was awake and was talking to him. Trying to tell him something. But he couldn't understand, couldn't process the words over the low grade ringing in his head.
Tendrils of exhaustion pulled his mind under again, swallowing his protests in a swirling mist of dulled pain and silence.
~*~*~*
"Irina."
"Jack."
They looked at each other carefully, inspecting appearances, discerning motives as the sun began its descent to the western horizon. The sand was cooling under their feet, and there were a handful of surfers out catching the last of the day's waves. Irina had directed him to Rincon Point for their meet. They were just two city-dwellers enjoying the late afternoon sun. She must've tagged him when he left headquarters, as once he answered his mobile, she came speeding past him, letting him know he was found. It wasn't necessarily unpleasant to know that the game was on.
"What does the CIA know, Jack?" she asked, beginning the exchange. The normal careful cadence of her speech was gone, replaced by something more hurried, more vulnerable.
"The CIA has a lot of intel but no solid leads. And you?" Jack answered, forcing himself to concentrate on the business at hand. It would not do to commiserate with his wife about their daughter's fate.
She shook her head and leaned back on the blanket she had laid out. Resting on her palms, she said skyward, "I know nothing beyond the simple facts of the fight and disappearance. My trail on Sloane has gone cold. My assets aren't finding any leads."
"But you know Sloane and what he wants from Rambaldi," Jack replied, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. "Surely you have some idea of his motives or his direction."
"I know Rambaldi, yes. But this is a circumstance I did not plan for. Doren wasn't supposed to break cover like that."
"She was your asset then," Jack said quietly.
"No, Sloane's. But I used Sark to run interference with her."
Silence for a few beats. Jack heard the cry of seagulls and the crunch of car wheels on the asphalt behind him. He didn't care to admit that it, but he was beginning to fray at the edges. The thought of Sydney's life being so exposed and violated made him sick. He tried to stem the pull of regret, but it just seemed too much to hold off.
Before he could move away, her hand was on top of his, her long slim fingers intertwined in his. "We will find her, Jack."
He nodded his head slightly and tightened his grasp on her hand. His brain screamed at him to pull back, but for just a few minutes he decided to allow himself the simple comfort of his wife's touch.
~*~*~*
The next time he woke, the world was a bit clearer at the edges. He felt more, the cool oxygen pushing through his nose, the scratch of bandages around his trunk, small shots of pain running up his spine and down his legs. He welcomed the sensations, dimly recalling the grey haze surrounding his previous battles with consciousness.
He looked around and saw that Amy was still next to him. He made eye contact with her, and she smiled broadly. She tightened her grip on his arm and called out for something.
A doctor. It took a second to process, but he had heard her call for a doctor.
Seconds later, an official looking man in a white coat came through the door. Will thought he spotted two more men directly outside of the entrance, but he couldn't be sure. He was having a difficult time pushing past the sluggishness. Taking what he approximated to be a few deep breaths, he looked up at the man examining his chart. The questions crowded forward, waiting to be asked, but he held back, still too disoriented to trust himself.
The doctor was now standing next to him, on the opposite side of the bed from Amy. It was as if Will was watching this happen to someone else. He felt completely detached from the doctor's actions, confused again by the pain he felt and the glimpses of partial images skittering across his mind.
The answer to his unasked question though was swift and unmerciful. As the doctor pulled back the sheet, Will saw the bandages. He had felt them of course, but seeing them now, a pattern of gauze and tape from sternum to hipbone, it all began to come back.
And then Amy spoke. Clear and quiet, he felt every word wash over him. "You were stabbed Will. You've been unconscious for seven days now." Her hand still grasped his forearm, her eyes searched his for understanding. "You've woken up a few times today. But this is the first time… the first time you seemed awake."
Stabbed. Seven days.
The double. Francie. Allison.
Memories of dying, of cool porcelain clashing with waves of heat and then the gradual going under.
He looked at Amy and moved his mouth, trying to form the words. Finally, with the aid of cool ice chip, he managed to croak, "I'm alive?"
~*~*~*
They had parted after thirty minutes of strategizing next steps and deciding on a simple SOP for their exchanges. Irina would work on non-governmental assets and other less than aboveboard sources for information. Jack would continue with the CIA until he could find someone trustworthy to carry on that part of the operation.
They were in agreement that pooling resources and information was the best first step. The silent but understood second step was the joining of forces. Simple information transfers wouldn't be enough to get Sydney back unless they were very lucky, and Sloane was very foolish. They agreed that neither was probable. Chances of success increased exponentially by them pooling their intellect, their flair for the game, their understanding of the players. All of this was understood without words. Tacit agreement that Jack would join his wife when appropriate. In Jack's mind, the timeframe was six weeks to three months. Enough time to get Will healed, trained and up to speed.
Irina had wholeheartedly agreed with Jack's suggestion of Will as their CIA asset. She had also agreed with his assessment that Will would either be on board or would refuse to talk to Jack altogether. Jack favored the former to the latter, but he had Dixon in mind as back-up in case Will refused the assignment.
The clock on his dashboard read 8pm as he headed back the way he came. Suburbs rushing towards him, lights turning on as the sun sank into the red sky. He could follow Kendall's orders precisely and return at 1am, but he thought the wiser move was to get some rest, as elusive as it might be. He wanted to believe that every minute counted, but he also knew that his ability to think clearly and focus was hampered by his lack of rest. Caffeine and hot showers could only do so much.
The lingering feeling of guilt and remorse - for Sydney, for Will, for Francie even - crept up as the miles ticked by. The silence of the car and the rhythmic hum of the road stripped his defenses. Normally he could survey his past and reconcile most decisions as being the best strategic choice at the time, but alone, his daughter missing for seven days, one of her best friends dead, the other in intensive care, it was a bit harder to accept the polished excuses he always used.
The soft beeping sound of his mobile diverted his attention for a moment. The text message was bright in the shadows of his car.
He is awake.
Finally. Jack sighed in relief. He had insisted that the Agent-in-Charge message him as soon as Will woke. He had been getting twice daily updates from the hospital, and although the doctors were optimistic, they were waiting for Will to regain consciousness before downgrading his condition from critical. Since walking into Sydney's apartment seven days ago, the image of Will lying in the bathtub in a pool of blood hadn't left him. Sometimes he would see Danny instead of Will. Sometimes he would see Will's face as it had been in Taipei, bloodied, bruised, lost of innocence. Although the images had a surreal quality of bright brushstrokes of color across a black and white reel of action, Jack faced them as the reality of the situation. Blended together, twisted upon themselves, it didn't matter. The guilt radiating out from his gut reminded him that they were not fiction.
He couldn't protect Danny. He didn't know enough to save Francie. But Will. Will was alive. He would be there for Will. He would make sure that the last connection Sydney had to her life before SD6 was intact when she returned home.
Pressing gradually down on the gas pedal, Jack moved into the left hand lane and increased his speed to eighty. He wouldn't go home just yet.
~*~*~*
Will gradually woke this time. It wasn't the thrashing to consciousness that had plagued him most of the day. This time it was the slow infiltration of sound and light that pulled him back to the surface. Instead of harsh edges and bright lights, it was the small noises in the quiet room and the dim light emanating from a bedside lamp that told him he was awake again.
The heavy grey blanket that had clouded his mind was pulled back some. He quickly recalled the details of his situation: stabbed, alive, Amy, Francie. He hadn't gone past this point earlier, but now, as he felt a bit more alive, he allowed himself to wonder about details beyond his immediate situation. Did they catch the double? Where was Sydney? Was Francie really dead?
Someone cleared their throat. The sound came from a corner of the room hidden in shadows. As Will's eyes adjusted to the contours of the shadow, he saw a man sitting in a chair against a wall. His head leaning against the wall, legs firmly planted in front him. The man must've noticed him as he stood up and walked toward him into the pool of light cast by the lamp.
Jack. Will took a deep breath and tried to smile for him. He realized he wasn't surprised by Jack's presence in his hospital room. It seemed right that Jack would be there. His eyes scanned Jack's face and saw the dark circles under his eyes, his unkempt appearance, the emotions radiating off of him. Seeing Jack like this, the edges of worry began to creep forward. Even through the remaining fuzziness of his mind, Will knew this was a bad sign.
Jack handed him a few ice chips from a bucket on the nightstand and sat down in the chair Amy had been in earlier. Grateful for the relief from the cotton stickiness of his mouth, Will sucked on the pieces Jack fed him and attempted to dissect the dynamics of the situation. After a few minutes, his parched throat felt better. Through it all Jack had been silent, not offering any information. Will felt more unsettled than he had during his earlier bouts with consciousness.
"The double?" Will finally asked, forcing the words out slowly.
Jack looked at him and answered simply, "She is missing, perhaps dead."
"Francie?" Will continued, knowing the answer, but needing confirmation.
"Presumed dead."
The pain pushed through his body, down his legs, up his chest, pulling at his heart, straining his self-control. There was more, so much more, Will was sure. Jack's expression was vacant, empty.
"What else, Jack?" The words were scratchy and barely intelligible, but Will knew Jack understood. He leaned forward, placing his hands on the bed and looking more distraught than Will had ever seen him.
"Sydney is gone." The words rushed out and crowded his head. Before he could interrupt, Jack was speaking again. "There was a fight. Sydney and the double - Allison Doren as you might've assumed. You were found in the bathtub, barely holding on, and Sydney was missing. Seven days have passed since that night."
Silence surrounded them as Will processed the information, as he thought of the words he had thrown at Sydney, at how serious he was at the time, at how his life was out of control. Jack was sitting tall in the chair, his eyes focused on a point above Will's head. Will fought the anger welling up inside of him, pushing it to the side for later. It wouldn't do them any good tonight and exhaustion was overcoming him again.
"I am going to go. You need to sleep." Jack's low voice penetrated the tense atmosphere.
Without really deciding on the action, Will used the last of his energy to move his hand over to where Jack's were lying on the bed. Grabbing one of his hands, Will took a deep breath and grabbed a hold of his last reserves of energy.
"Jack. Stay - Please?"
The grey began to swirl and push against his eyes, but before he went under again, he felt Jack's hand on his forehead and his whisper in his ear.
"Go to sleep Will. You're safe."
And then the world faded to black once again.