Title: Time out of Mind.
Author: Tim Radley.
Email: trad50@yahoo.co.uk.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers/Timeline: S2/S2.22 "The Telling".
Disclaimer: "Alias" and all the characters taken from the show are copyright J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot Productions.
Summary: What do you do when you can't even remember your name? The story occurs during the missing two years from the season 2 finale "The Telling" and solely concerns what happens to Sydney during that period. It will contain spoilers for anyone who has not yet seen the whole of season two.
1. Memories in a Box
The woman swayed back out of range as the baton swung past, scarcely an inch away from her face. Without pausing she dropped low, sweeping her legs round violently, aiming for the back of her masked assailant's knees.
He managed to evade, hopping over her legs and landing slightly awkwardly, stumbling two or three steps back from her. There was no time to press her temporary advantage home though. In the periphery of her vision she caught the motion of another baton swinging towards the back of her skull.
This time she swayed forward, the graceful economy of her movements breathtaking. The wind of the baton's passage stirred her ponytail, but it made no more contact than that. As it slammed loudly against the mat she stamped back on it, ripping it free of its wielder's grasp. Instantaneously her other foot snapped up and caught the man plumb in the throat. He collapsed backward, making a weak gargling noise.
Snatching up the fallen baton, she managed to parry the attack of a third opponent, retreating rapidly as he rained in blow after blow.
He dwarfed her – almost a head taller than her 5ft 9, and maybe double her weight. Despite that disadvantage she seemed able to hold her own against him easily enough after the initial storm of his assault was weathered. They circled each other warily. He feinted a lunge, but she wasn't taken in. A lightning-fast riposte cracked across the back of his knuckles, drawing a startled high-pitched yelp.
Stung into action, he launched a massive overhand chop at her head, but she caught it with apparent ease. There was an improbable amount of strength in her wirily slender frame. As he tried to force his baton down towards her head using his greater weight and leverage, she drove a knee up between his legs.
He managed to half twist aside, and thus preserve any future hopes of fatherhood he might have had. Even so the impact was enough to leave him doubled up and groaning in pain.
The first assailant had made his way silently round her blindside, and, with her apparently oblivious to his presence, was poised to bring his baton down across her back. Until, that was, she executed a swift reverse underarm thrust, catching him in the breadbasket with the tip of her own baton. He doubled over, the breath whooshing out of his lungs. A roundhouse kick executed with balletic grace and precision took him in the side of the head. He went down heavily and showed no signs of getting up again.
Her last remaining foe tried to take advantage of her momentary distraction, though he was still hampered by being badly winded. She sidestepped his rush neatly, bringing the baton down across the back of his wrist with a bone-cracking retort. Reversing the stroke caught him in the jaw, knocking his gum-shield out in a spray of blood and saliva. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
She turned around slowly, movements prowling – catlike. Everything was suddenly still and quiet. The first man she had downed made a rasping, coughing noise – tried to get up. He froze as she planted a foot lightly across his throat. As she looked down at him her hazel-green eyes were hard.
He spread his hands wide hastily. "I yield. I yield."
A nod. She stepped away. Her breath was coming quickly, wisps of dark brown hair stuck to the side of her face with sweat. She cast her baton aside and stepped over her three abused sparring partners. Her knuckles were raw and abraded – bloody and bruised.
Then she looked up at a row of three dazzling lights near the training gym's ceiling. There was no one to see there, but she knew she was being watched. She was always being watched. After a moment's pause she spoke calmly and clearly in Russian: "Tell Tchéky that I am ready."
* * *
"So Svetlana." Tchéky Romatsev ran a broad hand across the back of a thick leather bound folder. A signet ring on his index finger flashed in the candlelight and there was a flesh-coloured elastoplast fixed across the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. "You have been given the all clear to resume active duty."
She nodded, expression cool. "You have read the report, yes?"
The smile that twitched across Tchéky's lips and touched his eyes seemed slightly sad. He was a handsome man, perhaps late thirties to early forties, or perhaps older still – it was that kind of face; difficult to be sure. Dark blonde stubble gleamed golden on his broad jaw – the only thing about him that wasn't absolutely immaculate. "Oh yes, I have most certainly read the report. Marksmanship. Unarmed combat. Infiltration. Spatial awareness. Linguistics." A slightly awed shake of his head. "Off the charts. The highest scores we've ever recorded in thirty years operation."
"But then, I do have an unfair advantage, don't I?" In the candlelight she was luminously beautiful, dark hair piled atop head and spilling in coils down either side of her face, the strong angles of her cheekbones drawn in patterns of light and shadow. The dark blue dress she wore left her shoulders bare, exposed skin like creamy liquid gold. Only her grazed knuckles gave any connection to the woman from earlier in the gym. She glanced out of the restaurant's window at St. Petersburg's nightlit streets. "I've done all of these tests before. Seven years of field experience, or so I'm told. Even if my mind refuses to remember any of it, my body has not forgotten."
"You still remember nothing then?" he asked softly – almost tenderly.
Svetlana shook her head. "Nothing at all before . . . before the accident." A gaping, echoing void with not a single shaft of light to illuminate it. "The doctors say I might never remember."
"Or that it might all come back to you in a day, or a week, or a month. Hope Svetlana. There are no hard and fast rules on this." He smiled, but she didn't return it.
"I can't put my life on hold waiting for something that might never happen. And I hardly think you and your superiors have invested so much time and effort in my recovery just for that eventuality either."
"We care about you, Svetlana. Besides, you are a decorated hero, and we like to pretend we treat our heroes well." There was a wry, slightly cynical twist of the lips as he said this. He took a sip from his wine glass to cover it.
She shook her head sharply. "I need to be doing something Tchéky. Something more than sitting around and listening to the emptiness inside my head. Like this I think I'm going to go mad."
After a period of silence between them he reached across the table and lightly traced a fingertip across the back of her injured knuckles. "You're working yourself too hard. You always worked yourself too hard." He sighed softly to himself. "Ah, my little Irina."
Svetlana's face seemed to freeze over. "What did you just say?"
"Svetlana?"
"You called me Irina. 'My little Irina'" Her eyes had gone hard with suspicion. "My name is Svetlana, isn't it? That is what everybody tells me, though it could be anything, couldn't it, for all I know. Why did you call me Irina?"
"I'm sorry." He paused, briefly looking down at the table. "I didn't mean to say that. When you've known someone for a long time occasionally things slip out by accident . . .. The first time I met you Svet, you were working deep undercover inside a Moscow Mafia cell. The alias you were using at the time was Irina. You were so fierce and so beautiful. Are so beautiful. I fell in love with you under the name of Irina. Part of me will always think of you as you were back then. My little Irina."
She stared at him, slightly wide eyed. "What are you saying? We were lovers once?"
He grimaced – looked angry with himself. "I shouldn't have said anything. It was over a long time ago, and for you at least I think it was never really serious to begin with. You know very well that fraternisation among fellow agents is frowned upon." A sigh. "Anyway, I went away for a couple of years on assignment. When I came back you were married."
"And you were going to tell me this when, Tchéky?" She sounded angry. "Four months you've had, and nothing. I need to know these things if I'm going to recover. I need people I can trust. This is my life you're hiding from me."
He gave a snorting half laugh. "I'm sorry. But . . . what does it look like, me telling you this? It was over long ago, and you have no way of verifying if anything I've just said is even true. To me . . . to me, it just seemed that it would look like I was taking advantage of your condition. Trying to rekindle something that perhaps never was. What kind of arsehole would that make me?"
"I still need you to tell me these things," she insisted. "I need to know everything. Every little detail. I am not a china doll to be wrapped in cotton wool and protected from the world around me."
His gaze dropped again. "I know this difficult for you Svetlana. Difficult like nothing I can begin to imagine. But it is difficult for us too. Your friends – the people who care about you – looking into your eyes, and seeing you look back at them through the eyes of a stranger."
Her expression softened slightly, and she reached across the table, lightly touching the back of his hands. "I'm sorry Tchéky. I know you're trying your best."
His fingers closed over hers, and for a time they simple looked at each other. Abruptly Tchéky leaned forward – kissed her gently on the lips.
Svetlana froze instinctively at the contact – didn't respond. Tchéky withdrew hurriedly, sitting back hard in his chair. He coughed – ran a hand over his face, looking stricken with embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Christ, I'm an idiot. Forgive me?"
After a moment she nodded. Her eyes were unreadable.
He coughed again. "Well, anyway. Er . . . the business at hand. If you're absolutely sure you feel ready Svetlana, I'm willing to endorse the findings of the report to the director."
"I'm ready."
"Then you're back in. It'll probably be a few days before you get an assignment. I should warn you that they won't break you in gently. You'll be thrown straight back in at the deep end."
She just nodded. "That's exactly what I expect. Exactly what I want. I'm tired of being useless."
He smiled slightly. "We'll even reinstate your old code name."
She just looked at him.
"Your code name is Mountaineer."
* * *
Tchéky sat on his own in the back of a limo, being driven at speed through St. Petersburg's streets. The flickering patterns of the streetlights that periodically lit up his face made his expression look strange and hard; immobile.
His cell phone rang. After a moment's pause he retrieved it from the inside pocket of his jacket and answered brusquely. "Romatsev."
"It went well I trust." The voice on the other end of the line was distorted and artificial. It was impossible to determine anything about the speaker from it, even if they were male or female.
"It went well," Tchéky confirmed heavily. "She practically demanded to be allowed to resume field work."
"I said this strategy would work best did I not? Let her believe that she chooses her own path rather than trying to force her in the direction we want."
"You did," Tchéky agreed.
"She is so beautiful, don't you think?" The voice continued. "Looks so much like her mother did at that age, but somehow even more compelling. More special. Something about her spirit I think – a unique strength and purity that has managed to remain untainted despite everything she has undergone."
Tchéky's eyes narrowed as he listened to the voice, lips compressing into a tight line.
"So believe me, Tchéky, I understand absolutely why you are trying what you tried to start at the restaurant. And it was done with passable cleverness, I'll grant. In time she might even come to take the bait you laid if you continue to play it skilfully."
"I . . .. What are you talking about?" There was suddenly a flicker of unease in Tchéky's eyes.
"You don't think there is anything you can do that I cannot find out about? Not now, after all we have been through."
"I would not hide anything from you."
"Oh, we all try to hide. It is our nature. But remember this. She is not for you. She is to serve a purpose that was written over five hundred years ago. And if you so much as lay a finger on her without my express permission I will kill you . . .. Eventually, I will kill you."
Tchéky swallowed. "I understand."
"Good. Now, Chebakov." There was a click and the line went dead.
After a moment Tchéky's face twisted angrily. He hurled the cell phone against the partition separating him from the driver. It hit so hard that it flew apart into fragments.
* * *
Svetlana sat alone in her room – her cell. That was what it was, she thought, for all the fact that the door stood unlocked and she could apparently leave at any time she wanted.
She lay back and let out a soft breath. No, it was her own head that was the real cell – a dismal oubliette in which she'd been left to rot. No way out, and the harder she tried to escape the worse she became trapped.
Tears gleamed in the corners of her eyes, unshed, and she wiped them away angrily. No she would not cry. Not now. Not again.
Gritting her teeth, she rolled over, reaching across to flick on the bedside lamp. Then she pulled out the shoebox from its place beneath the bed. It had become a ritual. Something she did each night before she slept, trying in vain to remember; to uncover some scrap of her past, however small and insignificant.
She took out the first photo. Her parents. They might as well have been strangers. She stared at their faces, but no hint of recognition was triggered. Her father's arm was draped around her mother's shoulder, and the camera had captured a look of adoration on his face that even thirty years hadn't been able to dilute. You loved her, didn't you? But I don't know who you are, and I don't know who she is.
Vitali Borushka. Natalya Borushka. They were both dead now of course. Her mother when she was six years old, killed in a car crash, and her father just a year ago – a heavy smoker finally succumbing to the ravages of lung cancer. Facts that must have had a profound effect in shaping her, she knew. But now they weren't able to trigger even the slightest emotion in her. She had more connection to characters in bad daytime soaps.
The next photo was her, aged three years old. She stared at it.
You're dead too, aren't you? Unconsciously she raised a hand to her temple and the small, seemingly insignificant scar there. The bullet killed you, didn't it? And all it left behind is this shell. This pathetic empty shell.
She flicked mechanically through the rest of the photos. Her life.
There were more of her parents. Herself as a girl, growing up. With her mother's death and her father's refusal to remarry she had been an only child.
Class photos. Her graduating from university, surrounded by friends she didn't recognise. Then her in dress uniform, hair much shorter than it was now. Two years of military service, before being recruited into a covert branch of the SVA. Like everything else it might never have happened.
She stopped and lingered over the next photo. A handsome man in military uniform. Captain Daniel Armanov. Her husband. She had stared and stared at this photo for hours, trying to recall anything; any tiny spark of what she had once felt.
She'd been told that they'd been very much in love. Desperately in love. Soulmates.
Then, two years ago he'd been killed, cut down – along with half his unit – by a terrorist ambush in Grozny. It had hit her hard apparently. She'd been extremely depressed, and people had been very worried about her – that she might harm herself, or deliberately choose to get herself killed in action. Try to find Daniel again in death. After a period of enforced leave she'd apparently plunged herself back into work with a fervour bordering on fanaticism.
Svetlana let the photo, along with the others – the wedding pictures, the photos of her and Daniel together, apparently blissfully happy; the funeral – slip through her fingers, back into the box. Then she lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
Everyone was dead, and she had forgotten all of them. It felt like a grievous betrayal.
Well, at least she'd apparently managed to find a cure for her grief. So much so that she only had other peoples' word that it had ever existed.
If only I'd known. I might have tried it earlier. She gave a hollow, despairing laugh.