Title : She Knew
Author: lafleurdumal
Pairing : Sarkney (mentions of others)
Timeline : AU from prelude. Set a year after. Lauren has never worked for the Covenant.
Disclaimer : I don't own anything…
People thought she was unimportant, useless, some might even think she was just a spoiled girl who had succeeded thanks to her father. That was when they took the time to give a glance in her direction. Mrs. Vaughn, nothing more. Of course, they thought she was oblivious to the tensions running in their little world, to the secrets whispered in dark corners. But she knew. Probably more than they did themselves.
She wasn't just talking about the affair her faithful husband had had with the brilliant Agent Bristow. She had seen coming miles away, and there was nothing she could have done other than wait for them to see they had no future together anymore, only the ghost of a relation, the shadow of a love which was now destroying them. Eventually they did. She had been ready to forgive Michael, because, after all, she had had an affair of her own. Nothing like theirs: no repressed feelings from another life, no words exchanged, no emotion. Just meaningless sex, just about revenge. It had been unexpected to say the least, and in no way premeditated. Starting with revelations, small secrets about a Russian diplomat's murder kept from her by the people she trusted and revealed by the people she despised, Sark. The perfect humiliation. Then from work related, the revelations became personal, Intel she didn't give to the CIA or to the NSC. Photos of a hotel room, her husband's naked body lying beside one that wasn't hers, one that belonged to Sydney Bristow. Just a confirmation of what she was already doubting, but betrayal nonetheless. That's when she had started sleeping with Sark. She had hated herself for it, hated Michael for making her do it. Because it didn't take the pain away, only added disgust on top of it.
In the first place, she hadn't questioned Sark's motives, thinking he might have some agenda she couldn't care less about. She had been wrong. They had been occasionally sharing a bed because of the same thing, because of the same person. Sydney. Who else. She couldn't define her feelings about that woman. She stole her husband, she stole her lover, and yet, she couldn't bring herself to hate her. It seemed that circumstances kept pushing them in each other ways, with no bad intentions concerning the others. And objectively, Sydney had had both men first. She remembered when she discovered about her story with Sark during those two years.
Determined not to be surprised anymore by anyone, she had started to investigate by herself. At the beginning, she didn't find anything surprising, other hotels rooms, other lies she didn't call her husband on and the most painful, the so obvious angsty looks exchanged. The whole thing had become an obsession to her; she would watch the tapes endlessly, torturing herself and would find Sark to get all her anger out. But once, she saw something that had struck her. Sydney oozing sadness and guilt was leaving a sordid hotel of Warsaw, soon to be followed by an equally depressed Michael. Nothing surprising yet. But the third vision, she had focused on a man at the back of the room who had appeared to be watching the two adulterers leave with the same interest as her. Behind the glasses she had recognized Sark. The quality was average so she couldn't see much about him. But she had started looking in this new direction.
No one had really cared much when he had escaped after six months of custody, mostly because he had kept quiet; some had even thought he was dead. She retraced his journey from there. It seemed his path had crossed the one of lost a Sydney in a middle of a Julia Thorne crisis. Leads after leads, she had found out that they had started seeing each other seriously a year and 3 months after her abduction, around the time Michael had proposed her. She had learned, from one of Sark's ex-employee that they were very much "in love".
But her memory had been erased, this love along; which explained the sorrow Sark had felt and the hatred he hardly repressed when he had discovered Sydney was back pinning after Michael. Hence the affair with her. In the world they evolved in, one could think spies affairs were about power, influence or money. No, just love. And its deceptions.
But the story had really gotten complicated when Sydney had started to remember the said years. She had deduced it from the scenes of arguments she had witnessed on the surveillance tapes, from the angstier looks – if that was possible. She hadn't understood them right away; she had even caught herself hoping that Michael's remorses were too strong and that he wanted to stop it – such a naïve fool. The answer came fast enough. Footages of hotels rooms, again. But Sark had replaced Michael beside Sydney.
From this moment, Michael became less distant with her, while it seemed that Sark had forgotten her existence. And he once more became dead to the world. Only she knew he was alive – probably for the first time in almost a year. She had stopped her little investigation, getting tired of living her life through everybody but her. But she knew they had kept seeing each other. Sydney was wearing a mask of guilt whenever she came close to her father, to Dixon or to Michael. She was, indeed, wearing it a lot. The same looks she had received from Michael, until they decided to be honest about their marriage, about what had happened – she had just omitted the sleeping-with-Sark part, just as he had omitted the Sydney-going-back-to-Sark part – and had taken a new departure.
On the other hand, Sydney's attitude had only gotten worse to the day she had quitted, giving some false reasons, of course. But she suspected that nearly everyone knew why she had left. And with who. Jack did. And apparently, while not exactly pleased, he wasn't as furious as she would have thought. Michael knew and it was killing him. In fact, it had killed a part of him that had freed him from his past; he was now hers, and this time forever. She wasn't sure about Dixon but the slight shadow of disappointment you could see passing on his face when Sydney's name was pronounced lead her to believe he was aware of the fact that the perfect Agent Bristow had willingly left with a wanted terrorist.
And of course they all enjoyed thinking she was clueless about this months-lasting story. And she let them. But she knew.