"Memories"
Author: Waterdancer
Email: jch0578@yahoo.com
Feedback: Sure
Rating: PG-13/R for language and violence
Spoilers: None, really.
Pairing: Sark/Allison
Summary: What if Allison lost two years of her life like Sydney?
Archive: Cover Me, Alias Snarkgasm, LJ, Alias fic list. Anyone else, please ask.
Website:
Disclaimer: All Alias related materials are the property of JJ Abrams, Bad Robot, ABC/Touchstone, and Disney. I make no money from this.
A/N: Thanks to Fawkes for the late night beta. You rule! Celli for the beta—feel better!! CG and Trix for the once over. Anna for the plot bunny. She's EVIL!! Evil, I tells ya. More Author notes at the end.
***
"Who is he?" Ania asked, as the man slid her photos over the table.
"Nikolai Lazarey, also known as Mr. Sark," the man answered as she looked at the photos. She smirked as her fingers traced over the black and white image of her target.
"How do you want it done?"
"Swift and as clean as you're known for, Ania. He believes that you are a former lover of his and that will be enough for you to get close to him."
"Lazarey. Lazarey," she murmured as she continued to look at the photo. "Andrean Lazarey. That's the man she killed last year. This is his son?"
The older man leaned back in his chair and smiled. "One and the same. We've gotten a hold of the money needed to finance our organization, and the young Mr. Lazarey, who appears to think that we mean him no harm, is of no importance to us anymore."
"How long do I have?" Ania asked, as she slid the photos into her brown attaché case. She flinched as the waitress dropped a large tray of coffee cups. The area behind her eyes ached as she watched the woman scramble to pick up the scattered flatware. Her hand went to her temple and she rubbed it gently. She sighed as she looked around the café she'd begun to look at as her second home when she was in France.
"Five days. The first day you'll need to get acquainted with the city and hotel. The rest you'll spend getting close enough to him to kill him. You're to meet with your target in Monaco at the Place du Casino. He's a regular there," the man said, as he looked at her strangely. "Ania, I've been worried about you since Prague. The doctor said that you suffered a concussion."
"I'm fine," she said as she took a sip of her coffee. "It's just that—" She thought about the dreams she'd been having since her accident. As she looked at the man, she decided against telling her superior about the thoughts she'd been having where she was someone else. A long vacation after the job would help clear her mind. "I'm fine, really."
"Good. I'd rather not send one of my better operatives out without being sure of her well-being."
Ania couldn't help but laugh at the man's comment. "You couldn't give a shit whether I live or die. I get you results, and that's all you care about."
He chuckled and held his hands up in mock surrender. "I'd be lying if I said otherwise."
"Good. Now what about this former lover?" she asked, as she looked at another folder he slid across the table to her. "Will I have to change my appearance to look like her?" Her eyes scanned the contents before her. Allison Doren. As she read the first few pages of the dossier, she committed it to memory. The woman had been an operative for an organization run by Irina Dreveko and a close companion of her target.
A slow smile spread on the man's face as he sipped his coffee. "You look enough like her that he won't realize that you aren't the same person until it's too late. It should be a simple job."
She smiled in response as she slid the folder into her case. "Those are the best kind."
#
He drank deeply from his glass as his eyes scanned the busy casino floor. The Covenant had been more than happy to let him walk away from them once they had his money, but his past experiences advised him to look at his current situation with his eyes wide open. By keeping to himself in Monaco, he'd been able to observe the intelligence underground without raising too many red flags. The CIA knew he was free from the Covenant, and he felt that without a doubt they'd be after him as soon as they had his location. He walked through the crowd, smiling at various patrons, and then stopped as he saw a glance of someone familiar. She was sitting at the blackjack table with a playful smile on her face, and watching the table intensely.
My God.
He finished the last few drops of his drink and made his way towards her. He'd been so sure that she was gone. So set in the realization that he would never find out what happened to her. He sat on the chair next to her and motioned for the dealer to continue with the game.
"There are simpler ways to let me know that you are alive," he muttered as the dealer handed him a set of cards.
Sark watched, as she seemed genuinely amused by his remark. "But then I wouldn't be me, now would I?" She retorted with a wink over her shoulder. "Hit me," she said to the dealer.
He nodded to the dealer who handed him another card. "I suppose not," he answered as the dealer moved down the table. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. The machine that had changed Allison from her former self to Francine Calfo had exploded more than three years ago, and with the exception of her hair growing longer she still resembled the young woman.
"What happened to you? I'd gotten word that you were shot in a confrontation with Sydney Bristow and—" he started as she looked at him quickly.
"I survived," she finished as she flipped her cards, revealing that she'd beaten the house.
Sark titled his head and looked at her strangely. "Allison, where have you been?"
She placed her fingers to her lips and nodded at the dealer. "He needs to pay out first and then we can talk. There's a lot we need to discuss."
His eyes narrowed as he watched the dealer hand her multi-colored chips. "Indeed, we do."
#
Ania flinched as she walked hand in hand with Nikolai into the bright lights of the lobby. Her superior had assured her that in low light, Sark would think that she was indeed his former lover, but as they continued to walk through the lobby she wondered if he had figured out her deception.
"I exhausted every remaining resource to locate you, Allison. When Sydney Bristow reappeared, I wondered if you by some chance had survived as well." She smiled as he rubbed her hand.
We will get you back.
She could feel herself growing weak as she heard the words in her head. After being on another job in Prague, she'd been attacked from behind and fell sixteen feet from a ledge. For the first week after her accident, she'd begun to hear strange phrases in her head, and as she slept she saw memories in her dreams that weren't her own.
"Allison?"
Ania looked at him and smiled as she thought this Allison woman would. "Yes?"
"Are you okay?"
She laid her head on his shoulder and gripped his hand tighter. "I'm fine, now."
"Good," he murmured as they walked along the boardwalk. "Tell me where you've been these past few years."
Ania took a deep breath and inhaled a faint scent of cedar cologne. A familiar feeling rushed over her as he placed his arm loosely around her waist. She sucked in her breath as another sharp pain shot through her body. What the hell is wrong with me? Her eyes filled with stars as she grabbed her side, and a light sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead.
"You're sure you're alright?"
"Yeah," she replied as she took a deep breath. "I'm fine."
Using his arm, he turned her to face him. "The last time we spoke, you said that the fever had gotten worse. It didn't have any lasting effects on you, did it?"
She frowned as she recalled information contained in Allison Doren's file. The woman had had pneumonia before disappearing. "No, not at all. I'm just a little tired." She shook her head and smiled at him. "I'm fine, really."
"If you're sure, Alli—" he said, as he brushed hair out of her face. She caught her breath as she finally gave herself the opportunity to look into his eyes. The mixture of confusion and relief in them startled her. As they continued to stand underneath the lights of the boardwalk, Ania wondered if he was just playing with her like a cat would do with a mouse. She nodded that she was okay.
"Good. Now, what about these last few years? Where have you been?"
"You just don't give up, do you?" she asked.
"No, I don't think I could," he responded. "Where are you staying?"
"The Columbus Hotel."
He looked at the crowd of people who were leaving the casino and heading in their direction. "Let's talk there."
#
She stepped out her shoes as Nikolai made his way to the plush chair in the living room of her suite. "I don't have your usual. Would bourbon be all right?"
"Anything you have will be fine," he answered. Ania watched as he shrugged off his suit jacket and laid it across an arm of the chair. As she looked him over, the familiar urge she had felt when he placed his arm around her waist came back, then was quickly replaced by the sharp pain in her side.
"Will she remember anything?"
"Her mind has been completely wiped."
Biting her tongue to keep from crying out, she smiled as she bent down to pick up the bottle of liquor. Her hand shook as she poured the amber liquid into the glass for him and then for herself. "You look like you've done well."
He ran his hand over his closely cropped blonde hair. "I have." She handed him a glass and sat on the couch across from him. She watched as he sipped his drink, noticing the way his long fingers wrapped around the glass and the way he bit his lower lip as if he was in deep thought.
"Now, do quit stalling, and tell me where you've been for these last few years. I tried all our old contacts, but everyone said you had died. I'm afraid that I finally began to believe that as well."
Ania took a deep breath to calm her nerves. "I almost did. I—" she stopped and looked down for effect. "I messed up. I thought I had her, but she caught me off guard. The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital after being unconscious for more than a month."
"And your wounds?"
She had memorized the injuries that Allison had received at the hands of Sydney Bristow. "I had to go through physical therapy, and plastic surgery."
"What happened after that? Honestly, Allison, you simply dropped off the face of the earth."
Ania tried to recall if there was any information regarding Allison's whereabouts. Remembering none, she decided to use her last place of residence. He'll be dead anyway. "I was in Malaysia trying to keep a low profile," she offered, with a smile. "The less people know that I'm alive, the better. We can only trust each other in this business."
He seemed convinced of her story, as he moved from the chair to sit next to her on the couch. His fingers traced the outline of her lips. "This is true. I've missed you."
"And I've missed you," she mumbled as he leaned in to kiss her.
#
Ania leaned back in the chair as she watched Nikolai sleep soundly on the bed. She had felt like she was on autopilot from the moment they'd kissed, to the first time they'd had sex. Something felt right, and regular about the way they were together. He seemed to know her body as if he really thought she was Allison Doren.
"But I'm not, dammit," she muttered, as she looked out of the window from the chair. She flinched again as she felt her head began to throb. For the last three days, she'd been waking up in cold sweats, feeling sick to her stomach, and having dreams that weren't her own. The doctor she had seen in Prague had told her that she was merely hallucinating from her accident, but as she thought about the nights she'd spent with Nikolai—she wondered if that was really true.
"Of course, it's true," she muttered to herself. "Why would they lie to you?"
"Who lied to you?" a groggy voice asked.
Ania looked up, startled, as Nikolai sat up against the headboard. She looked away as his eyes fixed on hers. Remembering where she was, she smiled at him. "No one important. Did you want room service?" She only had a few hours before her assignment was to be completed.
She held her breath as he continued to stare at her, and then sighed in relief as he offered her a brief smile. "Yes, please. I'll go avail myself of the shower. Could you let me know when it arrives?"
"Sure," she answered, then stood up from the chair and made her way into the living room area.
#
Sark stepped into the bathroom, holding his cell phone with one hand, and using the other to turn the shower on. He thought about the woman in the other room that he'd just spent the last three nights with. It was Allison—he was sure of that, but the red flags in his head were waving madly anyway. There were things that she did that reminded him of the Allison of old—the way she felt in his arms, and the familiarity that they had with each other. "However," he mumbled as he flipped his phone open and found the number of an old contact that she wouldn't know about in Malaysia. "I'm not sure that you're entirely yourself, Allison."
He looked at himself in the mirror as the phone rang in his ear. It had been odd how Allison just appeared out of thin air in the same place where he'd been for at least six months. He'd spent the better part of his time away from the Covenant debating on how to get his inheritance back, and looking for her. She seemed like herself, but there had been times over the last three days that her behavior had been strange. One thing that had remained the same was her habit of talking in her sleep. Mostly through the night, he'd heard her speaking in languages that he was sure that she wasn't fluent in, and other times, she'd sound like she was crying in her sleep.
"Katrina," Sark started as he stepped out of the robe he was wearing. "I need you to check on something. I need to know if Allison Doren was anywhere in Malaysia or near Kuala Lumpur, approximately two years ago. Yes, I know that we checked before about Allison, but I've spent the past three days with her. Yes, I'm aware of that too. Well apparently, she's back from the dead."
He leaned towards the bathroom door as he heard Allison talking to the bellhop. "No, forty-eight hours is unacceptable. Make it twenty-four."
#
Ania looked up from her position on the couch and frowned as she saw Nikolai watching her intensely from the doorway of the bedroom. He was dressed in jeans and a camel colored sweater; she couldn't help but smile at his appearance. "What?"
"Nothing, Allison. Just watching you," he answered as he made his way towards her. The smile on his face was steady as he sat across from her. "Did you want to go out tonight?"
"Not really," she answered. "I've been enjoying my time with you."
Ania looked down at her watch. The Covenant would be expecting a phone call about her status in four hours, and she had yet to make her move. They had spent the previous day together at the private pool, him reminiscing about their time together, and Ania smiling as if she knew exactly what he was talking about. She opened her mouth to suggest that they spend another night in when his cell phone rang.
"I need to take this," he said quickly while he stood up from the chair. He walked over to her and brushed his lips against her forehead.
Think people like us could have a normal life?
Ania bit her lower lip and nodded to him. She waited until he left the room to let out a slow breath. Her eyes scanned the room for the bottle of aspirin that had become her companion ever since she had started to be in Nikolai Lazarey's company. Seeing the bottle across the room, she made her way towards it and stopped as she reached the French doors to the bedroom. Hearing Nikolai's muffled voice, she stepped closer to the glass door.
"What did you find out about the matter?" he asked, his voice a few octaves lower than it had been earlier.
Panic gripped her heart as she thought about his change of demeanor towards her after breakfast the day before. Throughout the day, when he thought she wasn't looking, he'd take a glance at his cell phone as if he was expecting a call. When she was convinced that he was asleep, she took the SIM card from his phone and placed into hers. Her eyes scanned over the numbers, not seeing one of importance, until she recognized the country code for Malaysia. She tried to connect to the number but it kept coming up disconnected. He knows. Her eyes went to the bag that held the straight blade she was to use to kill him. If she could just make it before he came back into the room---
"I see. And this information about her whereabouts was from a reliable source? It's important that it was," he said grimly. Ania continued to listen as he moved around in the other room.
"Anything more on the situation?"
Ignoring the pain in her head, she remained rooted to her spot as she strained to hear what else Nikolai was saying.
"I understand. Thank you for your assistance with this matter."
Shit. Deciding that her cover had been blown, Ania quickly made her way towards her bag that held the blade as well as a gun just in case. The job wouldn't be as quick or as clean as she would have preferred, but she'd finish it, and then work on finding out what the hell was happening to her body. As she pulled the blade out, she ran her fingers slowly across the dull side of it. She gasped as another sharp pain shot through her. Normally, finishing a job left her feeling with a sense of accomplishment, but as she thought about sliding the blade against Nikolai's neck—she felt sick to her stomach. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the gun and tucked it into the waistband at the small of her back.
As she stood up from her bag she saw him standing in the doorway and looking at her with his eyes narrowed. With the blade folded, she quickly slid it into her the pocket of the jeans she was wearing. She tried to read his face, but it had become a blank slate.
"I suppose you heard the conversation in the other room." Ania cursed herself for wearing her shocked expression on her face. Questions flew through her head. How long have you been standing there? Did you see me take the gun or knife out of my bag? She looked up at him at his blank stare with anger tinting his cheeks; she knew that she'd been caught.
"I did," she said as she held her stance. "I'm surprised that it took you this long to figure it out. I was assured that I would be able to pass as her, provided I stay in low light—but you've seen me in every way possible."
"I have," he said quietly.
"So, why the game? You could've killed me the minute you saw me underneath the lights in that lobby. I would've."
"I just spoke with a Malaysian contact that you were unaware of. Allison Doren was never in Kuala Lumpur, or anywhere else in Malaysia. Ania Lareby, on the other hand—For the past two years you have been under the identity of Ania, working for the same people who are trying to kill me. And that's why I was unable to locate you—I was looking for Allison Doren, not Ania. They did things to you, Allison, to make you forget who you are."
Pain shot through her again as he said the name again. The familiarity she had been fighting against since the first time she saw him came over her with blinding force. She blinked several times to regain her focus on him. "Dammit, I'm not Allison. For what it's worth, I'm sorry that I lied to you. Whoever she was to you, she was lucky. Really lucky." For reasons she couldn't explain, her eyes started to well up.
"Allison, --" he started as he stepped closer to her.
"Stop it! Stop calling me that. I'm not her." She drew her gun from her back. "My name is Ania Lareby. I live in Paris and—"
"Your name is Allison Georgia Doren. I've known you since we were sixteen and seventeen years old, respectively," he said, his voice calm and even as he moved closer to her.
"Back up!" she shouted, and she fired her gun. He ducked as the bullet flew by his head. "I'm not her. I don't know who Allison Doren is." Even as she said the words, she grimaced in pain.
"It's your head isn't it?" he asked as he stood up. "When my contacts began their inquires about Ania, they found out about Prague. Sixteen feet, Allison? You could've died."
"Goddammit, Lazarey, I'm not Allison!" she shouted again. "My name is Ania La—"
"Lareby. I've got it," he said simply as he continued to look at her. "My contacts tell me that some boxes broke your fall, but your mind has been—fragile---at best. You're starting to remember, aren't you?"
The gun she was holding shook slightly in her hand. Images of the dreams flooded her mind. She could feel the tears in her eyes as she stabbed a man with blue eyes. Will. She could see herself fighting with another woman. A brunette. Another image of her being strapped to a gurney and having electrodes affixed to her skin made her body shake. The gun fell to the floor, and she could almost feel the electricity shoot through her body. She fell to her knees, hands gripping her head.
Your name is Ania Lareby.
She heard the gun being kicked away from her and Nikolai bent down in front of her. Her hand began edging towards the blade in her pocket. His fingers brushed against her face, and she looked up at him. He seemed so sure that she was this woman. Her hand wrapped around the knife, and slowly she took it out of her pocket.
"I'm sorry," she whispered as tears fell down her face, and before he could make a move, she pushed the blade into his side. He fell back, his face twisted in pain. Blood started to stain the Berber carpet as she stood up and headed toward the leg of the couch where the gun had been kicked. Cocking the hammer back, she stood in front of Lazarey, who was grasping his side and looking at her with disbelief and pain.
"I really am," she said, her voice shaky with emotion.
"And so am I, Allison," he retorted, gasping for air. "So am I."
#
The hotel security guards reached the floor where other guests had reported hearing two people arguing. When they were greeted with nothing but silence, they smirked at each other. Shaking his head, one guard pulled out his walkie-talkie to report that there wasn't any noise. Suddenly, another shot rang out in the otherwise empty hallway.
"Help," a voice called out, sounding faint but coherent in the same breath. "I need help. Please."
Fin.
****
A/N: There will be an epilogue to this thing. I just have to figure out what's what before I do it. Thanks for Reading!