AN: You know when you mean to write something short and sweet and it turns into a 25K monsters? Well.

"Miss Sage? Miss Sage, can you hear me?"

Sydney frowned, blinking her eyes open. Even in her bleary state, she felt a swirl of resentment at the use of her maiden name. It hadn't been uncommon for people to use it in the early days of her marriage as a way of saying that they thought her marriage was illegitimate or an abomination. Sydney rubbed at her eyes, trying to clear her vision so she could identify the voice's source.

A man leaning over her came into focus. She reared back, scuttling away from him and shooting to her feet. The man's cheek was clearly emblazoned with a golden lily.

It had been five years. Five years of peace for her, Adrian and the family they had built. Sydney couldn't say that she'd had no interaction with the Alchemists since she struck her deal with Stanton, but this was something else entirely.

"Where am I?" she demanded. She held out an arm in front of her, keeping space between herself and the Alchemist, ready to use it for spellcasting should there be the need for violence. The room had windows, although they were closed. That ruled out a Re-education facility at least, and the last Sydney had heard, re-education had undergone a large overhaul.

The man raised his arms, palms facing her, in a non-threatening pose. "You passed out during the service. It's been three hours. We were on the verge of calling an ambulance."

"Service?" she asked. She didn't lower her arm, but she suddenly felt less certain about the threat levels she was facing.

"It's Sunday, Miss Sage," said the man, as if it explained everything. Sydney blinked. With the panic beginning to recede, she realised she recognised the Alchemist. His name was Alexei Ivanov, and he had been her immediate superior while she had been working in Saint Petersburg. He had hosted services in his apartment every Sunday for the Alchemists in the city, as the city itself didn't have its own Alchemist facilities.

Perhaps it being Sunday did explain everything to Ivanov. Ivanov's face held no disgust when he looked at her, as all Alchemists' did nowadays. He was acting as if she was just another Alchemist, albeit one that had apparently had a bad fall.

The last thing she remembered was helping Adrian and Sonya experiment with spirit. Adrian rarely did so anymore: he spent all but one month a year on medication. During the summer, he would help Sonya study spirit. There were still high hopes of being able to create a vaccine against the Strigoi, although it remained frustratingly difficult to isolate the spirit in any of the former Strigoi, and Adrian and Sydney stood firm on Declan not being experimented upon.

Today, though, they had been focusing on memory. Rose had mentioned how Avery Lazar had been able to find her feelings for Dimitri and create a scene featuring her greatest desires during that particular spirit battle. It was something they had decided to look into, and Adrian had been practicing on sensing her memories.

But perhaps, instead, he had accidentally trapped Sydney inside her memories instead.

And being 'trapped inside her memories' could mean two things: this was some kind of vision, and Adrian would be pulling her out soon, or that she had literally been dropped back into her past.

It sounded far-fetched, but Sydney had seen magic do some crazy things. Who knew? Maybe her own magic had interacted badly with the spirit magic and caused this.

Sydney took a deep breath. If this wasn't a vision, there was no point burning her bridges just yet. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened, but it's starting to come back to me."

"It's good to see you're starting to feel better, Miss Sage," said Ivanov.

Sydney ignored her skin crawling, and fixed a smile. "Never better."

Sydney managed to stumble into her studio apartment two hours later. First she'd had to get rid of Ivanov, and then there had been the struggle to remember where her apartment actually was. It had been over six years since she had been there last, and it wasn't exactly a place she had many fond memories of.

Her apartment was painfully bare. It was in stark contrast to her home in Maine. It was impossible to have a bare house with a five-year-old, and that wasn't even including all of her and Adrian's possessions: his art supplies, her books stacked everywhere there was space for them, mugs from Pies and Stuff and various holidays, and assorted knick-knacks acquired over the course of five years.

Her apartment, meanwhile, was decorated with basic, Alchemist-assigned furniture, only a few books, and photos of her parents and sisters. Sydney walked over to the photo of her father, and very pointedly placed it face down on the counter. She could put it back up if any Alchemists came calling, but Sydney had no desire to see her father's face in her own house (she couldn't bring herself to call it her home).

There were dozens of people missing from the collection of photos. Eddie and Jill, Rose and Dimitri, Trey and Angeline: all the members of the family she had forged in spite of the Alchemists. Most prominently, however, was the absence of Adrian and Declan.

Sydney sunk into her tan, Alchemist-approved sofa and buried her head in her hands. Alone in the past. Would she ever see them again? How on earth could Sydney guarantee that the timeline would play out the same, and she would be able to get her husband and son back?

She could play along, but there was still the problem of bread crumbs. She had tried to play along with the Alchemist party line once before, and she had ended up in Re-education, and that had been as an active Alchemist. Now, she had spent five years apart from the Alchemists, with a broken tattoo and her own beliefs – beliefs that were very different from those of the Alchemists. She had no idea if she was capable of hiding them for long enough to let the timeline play out as it had. Sydney hadn't needed to hide her beliefs in years. She was definitely out of practice.

Sydney swallowed, and pushed her hair back and out of her face, desperately grasping for a logical solution to this.

First of all: Sydney had been caught, ultimately, because of Zoe and the incriminating messages on the Love Phone. It was only because of those messages to Adrian and the mentions of Marcus that had ultimately done her in.

Second of all: Re-education remained, to this day, the most horrific thing Sydney had ever experienced. But she had survived. If it all went badly, she would be able to find her way out of re-education, and from there find a way to recreate her relationships, even if she was never able to go to Palm Springs.

Third of all: Sydney had no way out of Russia. She had no way to contact Marcus and knew no one who would be able to get her fake IDs and passports herself. If she fled the Alchemists now, it would be simple for them to trace her route out of Russia and apprehend her. If nothing else, Sydney had to play along until she was reassigned to New Orleans.

It left her with one choice, ultimately. She had to be an Alchemist again. She would be the perfect Alchemist until she got back to the USA, and if she thought she could get away with it, she would remain an Alchemist until she joined her friends in Palm Springs and rebuilt her relationships with them.

There was still one problem, however. Presuming that she managed to get all the way through the timeline without disturbing it – and that was still a very big 'if' – what did she do about Olive? Sydney could already feel Declan's absence like a hole in her chest, but in order for her to gain guardianship, Olive had to die, when Sydney knew how to save her. Could Sydney really let a woman die so she could raise Declan?

But on the other hand – was Sydney capable of watching someone else raise Declan?

Sydney pressed her fist against her mouth, trying to suppress her sob. She couldn't find a logical way through this. It was almost certain that she would lose Declan in this.

She wished Adrian was there. He'd know what to say. Maybe he would even see some way through this that she couldn't.

Just because Sydney had decided to stay with the Alchemists for now didn't mean that she was abandoning all of her beliefs.

Two days after Sydney found herself in the past, she walked into a casino, and started counting cards. It took her a month, but at last she managed to save enough to go to a jeweller. A week later, Sydney had two rings that were identical to her engagement and wedding rings.

They weren't something she could wear on her finger. The Alchemists would pick up on the sudden appearance of rings and ask questions that she couldn't answer. Sydney could, however, wear them on a long chain around her neck, letting them sit under her shirt and next to her heart. It wasn't much, but it made her feel closer to Adrian.

She hadn't even risked looking him up on the Alchemist database. She refused to leave a trail of bread crumbs just because she wanted to see Adrian's face. The rings, however, would be safe enough, she hoped. She hadn't used any Alchemist funds for them, and had, rather nostalgically, used the fake name Misty Steele at the jewellers. There wasn't a paper trail for the Alchemists to follow, and Sydney would be careful to keep them under her shirt at all times. Even if the Alchemists did find the rings, there was no way they could guess that they were from her relationship with a Moroi that wasn't due to start for another year.

Sydney wished that she had something of Declan's that she could hold on to. His birthday had been the most difficult day since finding herself in the past. She hadn't found the energy to leave her bed, let alone her apartment. She had spent the day curled up in her bed, desperately wishing that she'd hear a tiny voice demanding to know why she was still in bed on his birthday, come on mum, it's time for presents!

There was no keepsake she could recreate for Declan. Her rings would have to do.

She could feel the rings resting against her heart as she went to the Alchemist services each Sunday, felt the cool metal against her skin each time she met a dhampir or Moroi on business and had to fix that careful Alchemist mask.

"You're doing well, Miss Sage," Ivanov said to her before one service. "I'll tell your father about your admirable progress. I'm sure he will be pleased."

Sydney gave him a perfect, Alchemist smile. "I'm just doing my duty, sir." She kept her hands carefully by her side, not letting them stray towards her rings.

"As we should all strive to do," said Ivanov approvingly. He left her and went to the front of the room to start the service. Sydney made sure her face remained attentive throughout the sermon, but it was becoming increasingly difficult as the weeks went by.

It wasn't as if Sydney didn't believe in much of the Alchemist doctrine. Everyone who was a part of the supernatural world, even reluctantly as the Alchemists were, knew that the Strigoi needed to be ended, and the terrible effects that the temptation of eternal life could have on humans. Sydney couldn't fault their desire to keep their worlds separate.

It was the other things Sydney disagreed with. Dhampirs and Moroi weren't unnatural or wicked. There was only one divide that really mattered: the divide between the living and the dead. The Alchemists, however, didn't see it that way. They might add that the Moroi were allies in the battle against the Strigoi as an afterthought in the services, but Sydney had been through re-education, and knew how the Alchemists were meant to feel towards the Moroi.

She remembered Adrian, his soothing presence always urging her to be brave; Jill, poised and confident and supportive; Eddie, a pillar of strength in hard times. They were her people. They weren't abominations.

She was startled out of her ruminations as the sermon took an unexpected turn. "Early this morning, I received news from our colleagues in the USA," said Ivanov. Sydney jerked upright and tried to remember the date. "There has been a major Strigoi attack on one of the Moroi schools." Sydney swallowed. There was no way any of her actions could have affected Saint Vladimir's, but was that enough? Was who lived and who died in such an attack a matter of chance? Even if it was a matter of chance, would anything change, just because it was a new timeline?

"We have yet to receive any casualty figures, but it demonstrates the power of the Strigoi and the need for constant vigilance against the darkness," said Ivanov. Sydney leant back into her seat, and prayed for her friends.

"You know, Dad's starting to show me a couple of Alchemist things," said Zoe through the phone, the excitement in her voice betraying the casualness she was trying to portray. "He says it can't hurt to have more Alchemists, and since he's getting so many good reports about you…"

Sydney went tense, her right hand going to twist at her wedding ring. Since finding herself in the past, her relationship with her sisters had been better than they had been in years – especially with Zoe. Zoe and Carly had loved her, but largely from a distance. They had been raised in an Alchemist household, and a Moroi brother-in-law had been difficult for them to get past.

But Sydney had been talking to her sisters regularly for the past several weeks. There hadn't been any barriers on her sisters' ends. This, however, was probably going to put one back up.

Sydney searched for the right words. "Is he planning on getting you tattooed?" she asked, keeping her voice carefully even.

"I don't know yet," said Zoe, and Sydney could picture her shrugging. "Maybe."

It was ironic: last time, their father had started training Zoe because Sydney kept getting herself into trouble and interacting with the Moroi. This time, it was because Sydney was being too good an Alchemist.

Sydney pressed her lips together. Zoe had been one of the Alchemists most vocally pushing for change in the aftermath of Jill's rescue. She had fought against re-education and had spoken against the secretive nature of the organisation that had allowed people like Keith or their father to run their operations in the shadows. Sydney had been so, so proud of her – but Zoe had still been an Alchemist.

Sydney could feel herself chafing at the Alchemist life at every turn. She would save Zoe from this, if she could.

"Have you heard from Carly lately?" asked Sydney, keeping her voice casual. "She sounds like she's having a great time at college.

"Yeah," said Zoe. "She seems a lot happier now that she's moved out."

Sydney bit her lip. She knew exactly why Carly had improved so much upon getting away from Jared Sage and his ceaseless praise for Keith Darnell. She lowered her voice instead, like she was telling Zoe a secret. "I still kind of wish that I could have gone to college instead. I would have loved to study ancient art." Well, she had studied ancient art, but no one in this time knew it. It had been every bit as wonderful as she had always imagined. "What are you going to study?" Make it sound like she wanted to live vicariously through her sisters – it wouldn't be suspicious to Zoe, but maybe her questions might eventually encourage Zoe to have dreams separate from the Alchemists.

Zoe was silent for a long time, and Sydney almost spoke again, ready to change the subject into something a little less incriminating. But Zoe beat her to it: "Archaeology," she said, softly.

It wasn't really a surprise. All of the Sage girls had loved classicism, and Zoe was fairly scientifically inclined, even without her investment in the Alchemists. Archaeology would be a good fit for her.

"Sounds pretty great," said Sydney, leaning back in her chair. It was a relief to hear that the Alchemists didn't own Zoe entirely – not yet, at least.

"Have any casualty lists come through yet?" she asked Ivanov the next Sunday, keeping her voice casual as she could.

"I believe that the numbers are presently at eleven Moroi and fourteen dhampirs," replied Ivanov. "Dozens of Strigoi. And of course there have been countless injuries, but their spirit users have dealt with the worst of those." There was a note of disgust in his voice as he said the word 'spirit'. That a vampire was able to heal people, even restore people to life, went against so many Alchemist beliefs. Healing like that had once been considered miracles, the work of saints and prophets and messiahs. That an evil creature of the night was capable of it grated.

Sydney tried not to bristle at Ivanov's tone. It wasn't like Ivanov was disparaging Adrian specifically, so much as spirit users in general. And Sydney wasn't supposed to know or care about any vampires, let alone a spirit user she hadn't met yet. She hoped any irritation that showed up in her expression would be passed off as disgust over the use of spirit, rather than caused by Ivanov. Sydney didn't think that she had left any breadcrumbs, and that alone wouldn't be enough to send her off to re-education, but she could hardly be too careful.

Still. The numbers for the attack seemed too low for one of that scale. She tried to remember the casualties from last time round. The Saint Vladimir's attack was still being commemorated years later, but it wasn't an event she had visited regularly, nor an attack she had thought about regularly. Even her memory had its limits.

She sighed. Short of directly asking for a casualty list, which would raise too many questions, she had no way of knowing if any of her friends had been killed.

"Are you alright, Miss Sage?" asked Ivanov. He had been about to move off to start the service, but had stopped upon noticing Sydney's side.

Sydney plastered a neutral expression on her face. "It's worrying to think about – that many Strigoi working in one group. It just makes our job that much harder."

"That it does," agreed Ivanov. "But it also makes it all the more important. With so many Strigoi working in tandem and moving together, it raises the likelihood of one being noticed. We can't allow for them to interact so directly with the human world." He gave a barely noticeable shudder and drew a cross on his left shoulder, the sign against evil.

"Agreed," said Sydney. Interacting with and living alongside Moroi was one thing; serving the Strigoi was another. The Moroi were alive: they had souls and were just as capable of love and laughter and beauty as humans were. Strigoi were none of those things. They represented the corruption of all good things, creating a mockery of life. There was no way to live with them. One could only serve them, in hopes of being made a Strigoi themselves one day – presuming they didn't eat you first.

Ivanov watched her for a moment more, his eyebrows knit together and eyes worried. She offered a reassuring smile. He turned at last and Sydney kept the smile until he had made his way to the pulpit and began to speak.

Sydney started keeping an eye out for signs of Rose a few weeks after news of the attack on Saint Vlaidmir's came. The first time a Strigoi body was left in the open without any call to the Alchemists, Sydney headed to the Nightingale and searched for Rose.

She was sitting in the corner, hair tied up into a fancy bun and in a black cocktail dress. Sydney made a point of inspecting her from a distance before she approached and sat down opposite Rose.

"So, I'm guessing you're the one leaving Strigoi bodies across the city," she said, crossing her arms on the table.

Rose reared back. "What do you know about the Strigoi?"

"I'm an Alchemist," said Sydney, more patiently that she had last time round. "Look, I know it wasn't of the usual dhampirs in the city, since they're all pretty good about calling us. You, however, are new."

Rose still looked suspicious. "Who are you?"

"Sydney Sage. I'm an Alchemist. We cover up for vampires in the human world so that no humans can be tempted towards immortality."

Rose's eyes had flown wide and her mouth had dropped open as soon as Sydney started talking. Sydney furrowed her brows, confused. Sydney couldn't remember Rose reacting quite that strongly to her news last time.

"Did you say your name was Sydney Sage?" asked Rose, flicking her gaze over Sydney.

Sydney frowned. "Yes. Why?"

Rose shut her mouth. "No reason." Rose wasn't a great liar, and wouldn't improve much in the next seven years. Sydney almost opened her mouth to argue the point, but Rose had already moved on. "What do you mean, 'cover up'?"

"We use alchemy to dissolve Strigoi bodies when the dhampirs take them out, and if something's ever found, we have connections to a lot of high-ranking people in both the Moroi and human worlds. So if something ever gets out, we can usually pay someone off to make it go away," explained Sydney.

"You have connections in the Moroi world?" asked Rose, and Sydney nodded. She already knew what was coming; she could remember this well enough from last time. "I'm looking for this village – of dhampirs – in Siberia. It's near, um, Om?"

"Omsk," corrected Sydney automatically.

"You know it!" exclaimed Rose, sitting up straighter. "I need to go there."

Sydney stood up. "I'll be right back," she said, making her way outside into the quiet. She was already certain she was going, but that didn't mean she didn't have steps to follow, no matter how reluctant she might be to do so.

She took a deep breath, and called Abe.

"Well, if it isn't my favourite Alchemist," said Abe when he picked up. Sydney could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

"I found Rose Hathaway," she said shortly. "She's looking for a village in Siberia."

"Absolutely not," snapped Abe. "She should be on a plane back home immediately."

Sydney rolled her eyes. Now that she knew the truth, it was painfully obvious why Abe was so invested in Rose's safety. "Look, I might not know her well, but she doesn't seem like the kind of person who's easily turned off her goal," she told Abe. The only part of that sentence was a lie was Sydney not knowing Rose well.

"Then keep an eye on her," directed Abe. "I'll convince her."

Sydney bristled at the order. For her, it had been half a decade since she had paid her debt off. For Abe, it was a debt still very much in play. Sydney had been silently following orders for a month and a half at this point, and she certainly didn't appreciate another person bossing her around.

She gritted her teeth. Even if Abe was ordering her now, this was a decision she had already made for herself. "Understood," she said, and hung up. Next, she rang Ivanov.

"Sir, I found the dhampir dropping Strigoi," she informed him. "She didn't know about Alchemists. She's looking for a dhampir town in Siberia." Sydney made a show of hesitating and taking a deep breathe that could be heard over the phone. "With your permission, I think I should go with her."

"Why is that, Miss Sage?" asked Ivanov.

"Hathaway doesn't know about Alchemists," said Sydney. "The chances of her contacting one of us if she causes any more trouble is slim to none. If I accompany her, I can see her straight to the village without any trouble and pre-emptively prevent any extra work for the Alchemists."

Ivanov was silent on the other end. Sydney's heart hammered in her chest. She'd been allowed this last time, but it was possible that she had left too many breadcrumbs. "That is very brave of you, Miss Sage," said Ivanov at last. "Very proactive. Very well." Sydney grinned and thanked him before hanging up on him, too.

She had to get her smile under control before going back into Rose. "I know the village," said Sydney, sitting back down. "But I won't tell you where it is. I'll be taking you there."

It wasn't until late that night that Sydney had another chance to think about Rose's reaction to her name.

Rose was already curled up on Sydney's couch, eyes closed. Sydney wasn't completely certain that Rose was asleep, but she was still unwilling to check.

Why had Rose been so surprised at her name? It wasn't like she had heard it before – unless she had.

But Rose couldn't have come back as well. Rose would have reacted the moment she saw Sydney. So that left three options: Dimitri, Sonya, or Adrian. They had been the only other people in the room when she'd been thrown back in time. If anyone else had been affected, it would have been them.

She wondered, briefly, what would have happened to Sonya if she was sent back: would she have returned to her Strigoi state, or had her body restored at the point she was sent back, or would she be a Strigoi with a soul? It didn't matter either way, Sydney supposed. If she was still a Strigoi, Rose wouldn't have heard Sydney's name, and if she'd been restored, Sydney would have heard about it.

If it was Dimitri who had been sent back, it would be equally useless, as Rose's presence in Russia meant that Dimitri must have been turned. But Sydney doubted that it had been Dimitri, for he surely would have prevented himself being turned if he had been returned.

That left only one option. Sydney almost didn't dare to think it.

Adrian had managed to keep the same phone number in all the years she had known him. She doubted that he would have changed it in the year before she met him.

The centre will hold, she wrote, and sent it before she could think twice.

There wasn't a quick reply, and Sydney couldn't really have expected one. It was the middle of the American day, and thus the middle of the American Moroi's night. Adrian would be asleep.

But she still felt too jittery to sleep. Once upon a time, the first time she had shared a room with Rose, she hadn't been able to sleep, or even stay in the same room, with the dhampir. Rose had been another faceless creature of the night, a subversion of the world's natural order, and a dangerous symbol of what could happen if the vampire and human worlds were to cross paths again.

Tonight, however, it was for a different reason entirely. Rose was her friend (although she wasn't Rose's, not yet), and Sydney couldn't sleep because of the swirling mix of anticipation, anxiety and excitement. Sydney couldn't help tapping the side of the bed, unable to keep the excess energy in.

"Will you please be quiet," mumbled Rose, turning over in her bed and shoving a pillow over her ears.

"Sorry," whispered Sydney. She took out a book and began to read, trying not to think about Adrian. It was a lost cause, however, and after an hour, Sydney was forced to admit defeat and put the book down. She checked her phone: time was inching onwards, far too slowly for Sydney's taste, and her inbox remained stubbornly empty.

Her phone dinged three hours later, and Sydney almost fell out of bed in her haste to get to it. She read the text and clutched the phone to her chest, feeling her heart swell.

Because we are the centre.