Title: A Good Day to Die
Author: Kurukami
Feedback: Very much wanted.
Category: Drama.
Distribution: Please do not distribute or archive without permission.
Disclaimer: J. J. Abrams is the creator of Alias. I merely seek to tell stories which were glossed over in their initial presentation, and I own none of the characters presented herein.

Author's note: The events of this story take place during the eighth episode of Alias's first season, "Time Will Tell". I wrote this back in the spring of 2002, when I still watched Alias on a regular basis. I was always intrigued by the possibilities inherent in Syd's brief meeting with Giovani Donati, and so decided to write some backstory for that morning and what lead up to it. It's been malingering on my hard drive ever since, so when I stumbled over I decided, why not post it? Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

A Good Day to Die

Looking out across the uneven skyline of Positano, I drew in the morning's warm sunlight as it streamed through the southern windows. The sun eased itself away from the horizon as I sipped blood-orange tea from the weathered porcelain cup, savoring the aroma and the feel of the smooth ceramic against my tired fingers. The teacups were nearly as old as I was, but hadn't survived the passage of time quite as well. Only three remained intact from the original set, and I had been forced to glue each one of them back together from shards more than once.

"If you make this clock for me..."

I knew the cups almost as well as I knew my own hands. Both had been broken many times over the years, but I had an advantage the cups lacked. Broken, they would remain so until fixed. Broken, I would eventually heal, or so he had told me. After today, though, perhaps that would no longer be true.

It had been so long. So many years. But everything else he had said would happen had come to pass, and though I hoped that this prophecy would be proven wrong I no longer had much doubt.

"A woman will come to you on a Friday morning..."

I remember how dubious I had been, listening to him intone the words that day. How could any man claim to know what would occur so far in the future? Nonetheless, he was held in great respect by certain persons in high positions. Rodrigo Borgia, the Cardinal-Bishop of Porto, was said to esteem his works and inventions beyond those of all others.

"... the fifth of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand one..."

Those works, and what I had heard of his workshop, were part of why I respected him enough to hear him out. As for the rest... he had a certain reputation within privileged circles. It was a reputation which would return to him fivefold when his patron had died and the Archdeacon Vespertini had turned his full attention upon him. But when the inventor had first approached me it drew me in, like a moth to a flame.

"... an American woman."

Milo had chuckled to see my puzzlement as I replied. "An American?" I had queried, smiling. "What is that, some obscure tribe of savages on the Dark Continent?"

"No," he had replied. "But that will become more apparent as time passes."

I hadn't understood, then, quite what he meant. He had often been cryptic. I hadn't seen or understood the entirety of his foretellings. But I had been young then, less than thirty years of age and imbued with all the arrogance of youth.

"She will bring the clock I have asked you to create with her to be repaired, as her superiors have ordered her to do..."

I had not seen that clock in a long time... longer than any man might call a normal lifespan. Milo had taken it, along with the sun-disk that he had asked me to engineer it around, as comissioned payment for his gift and prophecy. At first, the presence or absence of the clock had not overly concerned me... but as time passed and seemed to pass me by, it seemed more like the fabled sword above Damocles, held back by a thread of years, then months, then finally mere days.

"... and although she means you no harm, once you have completed the repairs you will die before she leaves your side."

His words had intrigued me then, piquing a certain morbid curiosity. Though they seemed somewhat preposterous -- surely no man could tell what path God had set forth for an individual -- what if he could deliver upon his promise? I had dreamt of having my works immortalized, of being widely known and admired for the quality of my craft. DaVinci, after all, had accomplished much and garnered great fame in his studios in both Florence and Milan; his name was known to every scholar upon the peninsula and throughout Europe, from all reports.

And if I could somehow grasp that fame, that immortality, and live to see it spread widely, surely a single clock could not be too high a price to pay. Particularly one which was so astonishingly designed, down to the finest details... far more of a challenge than the glittering toys that nobles' sons had wished me to make them to impress their current inamoratas. If his promise had been so much fog, to disappear with the next morning's sunlight, still I would have been sorely tempted by the intricacy of the work.

"If you will make this clock for me, I can gift you with something no princeling or dynasty could ever offer -- the chance to live a lifespan far beyond any mortal man's."

Rambaldi, somehow, had known precisely what to offer me. The irony, of course, lay in the fact that the immortality he offered was not what I had hoped to find. And so, though I discovered as decades passed that I possessed a measure of immortality, my name had dwindled and been forgotten outside of my own acquaintances.

With that gift, and with the creation of the clock, he had brought me within an inner circle of his disciples. I was, as far as I knew, the only one who still survived him -- all the others who had been similarly gifted with Rambaldi's nectar were scattered, dead of violence or accident long years past. And though Rambaldi's Order of disciples remained, it was a pale shadow of what it once had been... corrupted by outsiders and power-seekers. I had severed most of my ties with them nearly a decade past in frustration, and for the most part they had since left me in peace. There was, of course, the exception of that dark-skinned woman who wore the Order's Eye tattooed upon her hand, who had pestered me for the better part of a month earlier this year, but the others had been kind enough to humor an old man's wishes.

Today, perhaps, I would discover the truth of Rambaldi's words. After so many years, so many gradual changes, so many people placing their own mark upon the world. The splitting of the Church over Luther's proclamations, and the civil wars that followed. The vast journeys of exploration which had expanded the breadth of geographical knowledge, and the discovery of the New World. The fall of city-states before the Germanic armies of the Holy Roman Emperor. The flight of the Puritans to find their own haven, where they could enforce their own belief system above all others. The power of the Turks, ever pressing upon the eastern borders of the European powers, until their final defeat a mere nine decades past.

Erasmus. Calvin. Michaelangelo. Shakespeare. Magellan. Newton. Voltaire. Mozart. Napoleon. von Clausewicz. Poe. Shelley and Wollstonecraft. Lincoln. Marx. Tchaikovsky. Darwin. Tesla. Doyle. Einstein. Roosevelt. Lenin. Hemingway. Gillespie. Churchill. Hitler. Tolkien. Fermi. Asimov. Hendrix.

Uncounted others, lost in the implacable passage of years. All but me.

Soft footsteps whispered from the hall, and there was a firm knock on the oak door. The clock on the wall read 10:47. Perhaps if I simply ignored it -- no. I'd lived too long to become a coward now. I would face whatever fate had brought to me. I made my way across the room and opened the peephole.

A young, dark-haired woman stood outside -- willowy, beautiful, clad all in black. She wore black-rimmed glasses, a knapsack, and a slender metallic necklace. In her right hand she held a battered leather suitcase. If that was what I believed it to be --

"Signore Donato," she began. Ah, she had the voice of an angel as well. How appropriate for this long-awaited day. "Mi chiamo Kristine Auritti, son lo con la Tikitau Auritti. Oquium pezzo che--"

"Sono pensionato." Perhaps... perhaps she was not the one. If I tell her I am retired...

"Se solo potessimo--"

"Mi dispiace. Non posso aiutar lo." I quickly shut the peephole, before she could say more, and turned to put my back against it. The craving for an end to this existence was in my bones and the pit of my stomach -- long desired, yet terrifying now that it confronted me. I had been upon this earth for so many years, yet suddenly I found myself desperate to remain.

Her voice carried through the door unmercifully. "Signore Donato, per favore!" She paused, as though considering. Please, let me be. Let me be. Let me live. "Om pezzo che penso vali vedere. E'un orologgo, costruitto de una de so intenati, per Milo Rambaldi."

So it was true. Milo Rambaldi. After all these years, at last his prophecy had come to pass for me as it had for so many others. There was no escaping him, even now. Reluctantly, I turned and unlocked the door. The woman had knelt upon the floor outside and was unfastening the straps to the suitcase, pulling forth a venerable, eternally familiar clock.

"Vespacci vedere..." As I took the clock in my hands, the hands that had so long ago forged and polished and assembled its pieces, I knew there was to be no escape. The only question now was in what form my death would come. "Entre."

She moved through the doorway like a lioness, scanning, considering my workshop, but utterly confident. She was the very image of the sketch Milo had shown me so many years ago... yet seemingly less careworn. "You are American?" I queried.

"Yes." She seemed startled by the question.

"Only an American would come to my door without telephoning." Best to put her at ease. I, after all, knew something of her already, while she undoubtedly knew only what her commanders had told her... and even that could not approach the whole truth. "Would you like some tea? I made it earlier, and I believe it's still warm..."

"Oh, no thank you." She had a gloriously beautiful smile, that transformed her entire posture.

"Very well." So much for the pleasantries of being a host. I led the way over to my worktable by the window. Perhaps, at least, I could enjoy the warmth of the late morning sun on my back before the end found me. "Come along, come along..."

She sat down across from me as I retrieved my tools and monocle, and began to tinker with the clock, cleaning away the detritus of centuries. I could feel Rambaldi's Eye staring at me from the clock's largest hand, through gears and supports, as the minutes passed. What should I say to this dark angel, who brought my death with her? Perhaps... perhaps she needed to know more than simply what those above her had told her. But gently, slowly. I mustn't frighten her away with what would seem the ravings of a madman.

"The first Giovanni Donato, his timepieces were miracles of precision. Kings and queens offered him vast riches, if only he would design clocks for them. He refused..." Of course I'd refused. The spoiled offspring of the aristocracy had only wanted pretty toys to show to their servants and relatives, not masterpieces which would become heirlooms to their families. Rambaldi had piqued my interest and pricked my curiosity. "But he did make one exception."

"For Rambaldi."

"Mmmm." Ah. Several of the cogs had been jostled or shaken, and had fallen out of alignment.

"Why?" She looked puzzled.

"Rambaldi made him a promise."

"What did he promise?"

"Rambaldi promised him he would live an impossibly long life. He even revealed to him when he would die."

"Was he right?"

"Of course." I pulled back the monocle and smiled at her. It felt like the dry rictus of a skull pulled across my face.

She studied the timepiece. "This symbol on the front. What does it mean?" Ah, so she had noticed the Eye as well. I had felt the weight of its gaze while I tinkered with the clock's innards, promising that the fate Rambaldi had spoken so long ago would soon come to pass.

"The Magnific Order of Rambaldi. Rambaldi's most loyal followers, entrusted with safeguarding his creations." And I was one of them, for more than five centuries. No, she would never believe that. "Sadly, like most things that once were pure, criminals now use this symbol to infiltrate the order." I leaned forward again to continue the repairs.

"What about this date?"

Almost ... there. Merely the adjustment of that one spring, and it would be nearly complete again. Of course, it still lacked the sun's disk, but perhaps those she worked for knew nothing of it. In any case, I would not be the one to reveal the composition of the last piece. But as for her question...

"It must have meant something to Rambaldi. The clock was built from one of his designs." Perhaps if I left the clock unfinished, I could ... no. I could nearly feel the cold breath of fate on the back of my neck. It would not pass me by, much as I might wish it to. Curse Rambaldi, for this burden. "He never did tell me what it meant."

The angel's brow furrowed, and she looked at me sharply. "What did you say?"

Damn. Old fool, to let your tongue slip like that. "Oh, uh, my mother. My mother never told me. I don't think she knew." I would not tell her of the sun's disk itself -- I still owed the Order that much -- but the angel should at least know that the clock is incomplete. "There's still one piece missing I don't have."

"So it won't work?"

"It will tell time, if that's what you mean." I leaned forward to nudge the spring back into place, and released the starting lever. The timepiece began to scythe away the moments with mechanical precision, just as it had when I'd first made it. I held her gaze with my own, knowing that it could not be long now. She had come and the clock was repaired, and soon, at last, death would find me. A heart attack, perhaps? Rambaldi's nectar could not possibly preserve my body forever. Or a stroke. Either of those seemed the most likely. The highways and interchanges along which my blood had flowed for centuries would finally give out. Hopefully it would not be too painful.

The angel looked up from the clock and met my gaze. "Mr. Donato... what was Rambaldi working on?"

Perhaps... just one last look at the sun before fate followed its course. I looked at my angel sadly. There was so much she could not yet understand. "The clock is fixed. Now... it's over."

A confused expression crossed her face as I slid my chair away from the table and stood. I felt the cool shadow steal across my shoulders as I left the sun's warmth, and someone struck me hard between the shoulderblades with a sharp punch. I stumbled against the edge of the worktable, thrown off-balance and suddenly dizzy, as red spattered across the angel's face and I heard the musical chiming of glass shattering behind me. The angel's mouth was frozen in an o of shock, and I wanted to tell her not to worry, I was fine, I had lived ten men's lives and this was but a fainting spell, but the floor was slipping sideways beneath me and I could not keep my balance.

The floorboards came up with glacial slowness but struck like hammerblows, yet there was no pain, no pain at all, just the icy numbness in my back, spreading through my blood. The front of my shirt was all red, just like the drops on my angel's face as she crouched beside me on the floor, her hand upon my shoulder, and I almost laughed at my own clumsiness, to spill something on both of us. The angel looked so concerned, and I wanted to speak to her, tell her not to worry, but it was cold, so cold, even though I lay in the sunlight, and my lips were like ice and I could not force the words out. The light was fading before my eyes ... but it was only mid-morning, how could it be growing dark so soon? Had my angel had brought it with her, this darkness? But that could not be, I could still feel her fingers on my shoulder, warm and comforting, a gift of companionship, as night swallowed the long morning's sunlight at last.