Visitation
By Nomad
December 2008
Summary: Jack is confronted with a visitor who claims to be
from the future.
Spoilers: Up to the finale.
Disclaimer:
Characters, settings and concepts belong to J.J. Abrams; borrowed
for entertainment value, not profit.
Author's Note: Written
for the time travel challenge at alias500.
Jack doesn't know what to make of the woman who is and is not his daughter. She appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the Ops Centre - literally out of nowhere, if you believed Marshall, which he wouldn't have if not for the supporting CCTV footage - with a ludicrous story of Rambaldi machines and time travel.
It's the very ridiculousness of her tale, and the strength with which she sticks to it, that makes it seem oddly compelling. What enemy operative would try to sell such a bizarre story?
The real Sydney - his Sydney, if he has any claim to call her that - is adamant that it's a trick. He knows she's right, and yet he finds himself returning again and again to watch footage of the glass cell that once held Irina Derevko.
This woman is nothing like her, and everything like her. She's somewhere in her forties, with every inch of Irina's grace and none of her glittering malice. She has Sydney's walk, and Sydney's eyes, and Sydney's determination.
He once believed that he could tell his daughter apart from any impostor, but clearly he was wrong.
Among the things that the woman had with her is a tiny computer that has Marshall tied in knots. Jack has seen too many technological advances in his own lifetime to classify anything as science fiction, but he takes a copy of the decrypted files for his own perusal.
It's a personal computer, no mission files and little content that's available offline. There are, however, photos. He pauses for a long time over a folder marked 'Dad and Isabelle'.
When he opens it, the images are not what he expected. They show him with a young baby, from newborn to a few months old, and sometimes with Sydney. She looks radiant. He looks... happy.
He's convinced that the pictures are fake, but Marshall can't find the traces to prove it.
A second folder marked 'Isabelle and Jack' seems the first hint of a mistake in putting this scam together - but when he opens it, there are no pictures of him in there. Instead, a girl who's not quite Sydney and a dark-haired boy grin up at him from toddler to teen.
He blinks a few times before dismissing it as sentimental nonsense created by someone who was clearly lacking intel.
That doesn't stop him from viewing the rest of the family pictures. Vaughn is in most of them; he is in none. That only serves to make them more convincing.
Sydney - his Sydney - insists on interrogating the woman herself. She gets no new answers, only a gentle kindness in response that finally causes something inside of him to break loose.
The woman in the cell maintains that she has only a brief window to return to the Rambaldi machine that brought her here. Twenty-four hours before the window is up, Jack masterminds a jail break. She doesn't seem surprised.
They trek to a remote site in the Arizona desert, a remarkably prosaic location for a time machine. He shouldn't trust this woman who smiles at him too fondly, but Irina has proved that he has a gift for making the same mistakes over and over.
The window is four minutes from over when she locks the final piece of the crystal shard puzzle in place, and bright lines appear to outline the doorway in the rock.
Jack has never been terribly swayed by pyrotechnics, but he's prepared to wait this out for proof or disproof.
"Blow this place up when I've gone through," she says, her jaw set just like Sydney's. He's brought C4 in anticipation, and the sight of it makes her smile.
Thirty seconds from the deadline, she turns back.
"You should go," he tells her, as she runs back to him.
"This is important," she says, and then throws her arms around him. She speaks close to his ear, in the low, sure tone Sydney uses to promise death to Arvin Sloane. "I just need to tell you... I forgive you everything. Always." She kisses his cheek, then turns around and runs.
There's a bright flare from the doorway, but that isn't what makes him blink.
When he goes to check ten minutes later, there's no sign of her in the inner chamber. He could search for a hidden passage, but instead he sets the C4 charges.
On the flight home, he convinces himself that it couldn't possibly have been Sydney.
End