Title: Waiting Game

Author: OpheliacAngel

Characters: Sydney/Adrian, Rose/Dimitri

Genres: Family/Romance

Rating: Teen

Summary: All those little things that shouldn't have meant a thing: the love phone, the cross, Hopper. Yet they meant everything.

A/N: Written for h/c_bingo for the prompt 'loss of possessions.' Spoilers for 'The Fiery Heart.'

It wasn't just one thing for Sydney. It was one slip up, yes, one that she could blame herself entirely for. She had been nagging Adrian to stay safe and wary and yet she had doomed herself. It was ironic really, the Sydney who had at once thought that she could keep herself together had failed. Luckily, Adrian wasn't the one caught in the crossfire. She had managed to save him by purposefully throwing herself to the Alchemists and to her father and sister.

Zoe. She thought they were going to be sisters again. She was too numb to sob.

It wasn't just one thing about Adrian that she loved, it wasn't merely one object that symbolized the entirety of their relationship. It was so many things, rolled up into one, the Alchemists taunting her with one of them now. All those little things that shouldn't have meant a thing: the love phone, the cross, Hopper. Yet they meant everything.

The cross was a symbol of her loyalty and complete faith in Adrian, and the Alchemists were perverting it. It was what they did, and they imagined that one simple thing could break her. If she let them corrupt her again she would never again feel or appreciate Adrian's touch.

They underestimated her love and devotion to Adrian. Either way, she would die here. She could get behind that fact and learn to accept it.

She was playing their waiting game now.

"Love phone?"

Rose quirked an eyebrow despite the dire situation Adrian had driven her and her Russian lover into. He suspected that she was just trying to find some humor within this whole wreck that Adrian's life had become, just as Adrian once would have done. Except at the moment he was the grieving widower who couldn't help Sydney in any way, shape or form because he had willingly given up his only way to save her.

Getaway number whatever. Get Sydney a job at one of those drive thru's that make you roll out to your customers in roller skates. Inspiration? Sydney would look adorable in roller blades, pulling up to Adrian's widow and kissing him across the partition.

His head snapped out of the image, regretfully. "You have no idea," Adrian responded. I should have kept better track of our phones. She was going through enough stress with her sister and trying to make up lies just so she could see your sorry ass. Should have taken her away a long time ago, not taking no for an answer and tying her up in the backseat. Shoulda coulda woulda. Doesn't much help now, does it, Adrian?

For once in his miserable existence he's glad that he's disconnected from spirit. He really doesn't need his aunt talking to him at this point in time.

Rose bends down slightly to look Adrian in the eye, Adrian doesn't look back though, merely stares down at the concrete. "You know, Dimitri and I used to have a thing for possessions once too. He got chapstick for me as a birthday present for my first birthday back at St. Vladimir's. Best birthday present too, by the way. That stick saved my complexion more than once."

"Anything else?" Adrian was seriously doubting bringing Rose in on this. Sure, Dimitri was out hunting for intel, but why Rose chose to stick with him, Adrian didn't know. Maybe to keep him sane?

Rose seemed to rack her brain for a moment. To an outsider it would seem like an average conversation between two people we definitely could not be panicking and wringing their heads for ideas. To Adrian, it all seemed like insanity and hopelessness.

"Yeah," Rose suddenly remembers. "I got him a pack of hair ties once. You must know the whole necessity dictates the action thing. He mentioned to me that he had been running out of them, so I got him a pack and there wasn't a day that I didn't see them on." Rose must notice that he's not really paying attention to the whole hair tie thing so she snaps her fingers in front of his face. "My point is that possessions can be meaningful, but they're not everything. They may represent to you what your relationship was at the time, but the thing about love is that it always grows, Adrian. I still have a couple bottles of your perfume left over, but they don't stir a reaction in me anymore. They just make me... happy, and allow me to remember what I was like before I grew up."

Adrian looked at her like she was the craziest person alive, completely forgetting about the blow she just dealt him. But then again, Adrian grew up too and that had turned out to be a perfectly good thing. "What made you get all philosophical? You sound like Lissa."

Rose smiled but then it faltered for a minute as she no doubt remembered the severing of the bond between her best friend. He briefly wondered if Jill would feel the same way if their bond were broken. There would definitely be something... lost between them. "The point is, Adrian, that we are going to get her back. A phone might have resulted in her getting caught, but you called us in and if you honestly think Dimitri and I are going to give up before we find her, then you've turned crazy and are beyond any help." Adrian stared at her in shock then and Rose scoffed. "Have you honestly forgotten about the adventures Sydney and I went on? I'm not going to leave her to be tortured, what kind of a friend would I be if I let that happen without inflicting Rose Hathaway punishment?"

Adrian was almost afraid to ask. "And what would Rose Hathaway punishment involve?"

"Fire, explosions, kick-ass fighting skills," Rose shrugged. "That about sums up the first part. Plus, don't ever mess with a Russian god. It'll be the last thing you ever do." Adrian managed to laugh at that, but it didn't fight the grim thoughts consuming his mind. Sydney had been gone for a month, and who knows what the Alchemists had already done to her. When they finally managed to find her, would she still be Sydney? The Sydney that Adrian knew so well and loved to pieces?

Rose's hand fell on his shoulder, eyes boring into his own. "We'll find her, okay, superman?"

He didn't know whether petting Hopper, who lay immobile in his pocket, was meant to comfort the callistana or himself. All the things they lost, all that the Alchemists stole. When he got Sydney back none of that would matter anymore. They wouldn't need the Love phone anymore because they wouldn't need to grasp onto secrets like air, and Adrian could always get Sydney another cross. It was Hopper who would suffer the most, having become motherless. But he still had Adrian, who would keep him safe until Sydney's return.

Because she would come back. Adrian dropped his head down into his hands. Right?

FIN