"The Telling"
Author: Waterdancer
Email: jch0578@yahoo.com
Feedback: Yes, please.
Rated: PG
Classification: Drama, Missing Scene
Archive: Cover Me, Alias Uncovered, anyone else please ask.
Disclaimer: All Alias related materials, (Sark, Allison, Markovic, Will Tippin, etc.) are property of JJ Abrams, ABC, Touchstone Television, Disney, etc. I don't have a team of lawyers to sue. If Allison were mine, she'd be back next season for sure. Ya hear that JJ?
Ship: Sark/Allison
Spoilers: S2 Finale, mostly. ;)
Summary: Sark's realizations about Allison's feelings may be true. Some flashbacks.
A/N: Thanks to the usual suspects for the beta, parker for the inspiration, and Thorne for the usual crap ;) , and the research stuff. All errors are my own. Also, I apologize for the non-italics thing. FF.net is giving me issues. If you want to read the correctly formatted version, please check out my fanfic page (go to my profile), and this story is at the very end of the second column.
***
You don't fancy him, do you?
Don't be stupid.
***
Muttering under his breath, he leaned against the white pillar and listened for the door to shut behind her. He frowned, admonishing himself for his remark to her regarding Will Tippin. She'd been there for him in his darkest moments and had proven her loyalty to him as well as their cause more times than he could remember. With everything she had done for him, why was he doubting her now? No matter what his instincts told him, his mind screamed at him to look at the proof. Allison Doren. His Alli and Will Tippin. Sometime after assuming the identity of Francine Calfo, she developed feelings for the new CIA recruit. The conversations he heard from the bug he'd placed in the restaurant had clued him in to that fact.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, you're saying in high school my girlfriend dated a quarterback?
I just saw something and it reminded me of him. I don't know, maybe you can do that for me some time.
He frowned again as he thought about the smile in her voice that night. He hadn't heard her sound like that since the last time they spent some time away from the life that they'd chosen. It was their annual vacation, always two weeks after Christmas and always just the two of them. He always told Irina that he had business in the country, and for her part, Irina pretended to believe the lie. She knew about Allison and why Sark had to be in Poland. He was grateful that she never made an issue of the relationship.
During that last trip, the Eastern European winter had chilled them as they walked through the downtown area, stopping to glance at the goods in the boutique windows. She had stopped to stare at a shop window admiring a sterling silver locket.
"Do you like it?"
"It is beautiful, Alex."
"I'll get it for you."
"You've done so much since we've been together. That's enough."
But it wasn't. He wanted to please her. Had always wanted to please her from the first time they'd met. He'd gone back to the shop after she'd decided to take a late evening swim and presented it to her during dinner in their hotel room. The smile she graced him with had made him feel loved. As they laid in bed together-legs intertwined, his fingers firmly on her hip, and lips pressed against her bare shoulder. Allison held the silver locket in front of her and looked back at him.
"I love you."
In the warehouse, listening to her car drive away—Sark remembered hearing those words for the first time in Poland. Even more important to him, he remembered the last time she'd said the words to him wearing her own face, right before she underwent the procedure to become "Francine". He'd been against her accepting the assignment the moment he was told about it. He'd insisted on finding someone else to take the assignment. It was too dangerous and the machine had only been used on Dr. Markovic. And as usual, she'd assured him that everything would be fine and she'd be back to herself in a matter of months.
"When this is done, let's go somewhere else for holiday. Instead of Poland."
"You know that I'm against this, don't you, Alli?"
She reached out to him and patted his cheek. "I know you are, Alex. Where would you like to go for holiday?"
Placing his hand over hers, he nodded to her ability to change the subject. "Anywhere you'd like."
She stepped towards him and brushed her lips against his. "I'll see you soon."
In the weeks following her transformation, he'd spoken with her in clandestine locations and at odd hours of the night. He remembered the whispered promises of her love for him, even though he'd sensed her growing attachment to Will Tippin. Reaching into his suit pocket, he pulled out the photo that had came to his attention just weeks earlier. He looked at the photograph and traced the outline the face of the woman that Allison had become. He knew in his mind that she was still Allison underneath, but as he looked at the way she smiled at Tippin in the picture, he knew that she had changed.
"She loved him," she mumbled as she shrugged on the camel hair jacket she'd bought after her first weeks as Francine Calfo.
"Have you been having nightmares, Allison?" he asked, his voice marked with concern. It was one of the side effects of the procedure. "You should've called me."
"I haven't had nightmares, Alex. It just that I was looking through one of her photo albums to search for anything that would give me insight into Francie, and I came across a photo of just her and Tippin. After a basketball game, I think. The look in her eyes as she looked at him. It was sweet, you know. I think it was then that she fell in love with him."
He looked down at his hands and back at her. The sadness in her voice worried him. As he continued to watch her, he wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and tell her that he understood what she was going through.
"Did you punish him? The man who shot her?"
His mind filled with memories of the anger in her voice after she recounted the night of the murder to him. Francine Calfo was not supposed to die, but because of her quickness with a butcher knife and an itchy trigger finger of the guard he sent with Allison, she'd been killed with deadly accuracy.
"No, I haven't."
"And why not? He disobeyed your orders."
"Allison, it isn't that simple. What we do is important work. You know that."
"But he disobeyed you, Alex. He killed an innocent woman. The plan was for me to assume her identity for five months and then she'd be brought back. Not for her to be murdered."
"You think that I'm not aware of that fact?" he asked, immediately regretting the tone in his voice.
Allison's face fell, and she stepped back from him. "You don't understand, Alex. The way he looks at me. It's just so difficult. He made me dinner last night. Said it was a 'Thank You' for being me. But I'm not her." Sark watched tears form in her eyes. His heart broke as he recounted the physical pain she'd gone through to become Francine, but as he continued to watch her, he knew that the physical had been nothing compared to the emotional pain she was suffering.
"Come here," he mumbled, stepping near her.
She shook her head and stepped back from him. "I can't, Alex. If Tippin smells your cologne on me again, I'm not sure I'll have answers this time."
"I don't care. Come here."
She moved slowly towards him, and he wrapped his arms around her. "Allison, although I was and still am very much against what you've gone through. I'm pleased—" Sark struggled to find the words to express himself.
She looked up at him, and nodded. She'd always understood him. "That I was willing to subject myself to all of this to reach our goal?"
"Yes. I love you, Allison."
"And I love you, Alex."
****
"Alex?"
Snapping out of his reverie, he turned towards the woman who had stormed out of the warehouse just moments before.
"Allison? Are you feeling okay? The fever hasn't gotten worse, has it?" he asked, as he walked towards her from his position near an arch in the middle of the large room.
"No, it hasn't. I just wanted to apologize for my remarks earlier. It was unnecessary," she answered, wrapping her arms around herself.
"You were frustrated, and I didn't help matters by sounding like a petulant child." He moved closer to her. His eyes scanned her face and looked for the emotion he'd seen earlier.
"You were well in your right to ask a question like that, Alex. I just wanted to reassure you that whatever feelings I may have for Will are from just being in close proximity to him. Nothing more."
With a tilt of his head, he frowned at her slip of the tongue. His years of training shouted at him to notice that she'd called Will Tippin by his first name and with a shade of tenderness that he hadn't picked up on before. But as he moved closer to her, and rubbed his fingers across her lips, he chose to ignore his training.
"I believe you, Alli," he mumbled. He took her face into his hands and pressed his lips against hers. A low sigh escaped him as Allison leaned into his body. He snaked his arms around her waist and allowed himself to smile against her lips.
She stepped back from him and began to speak when her cell phone began to ring. Taking the phone out of her pocket, she looked at the caller ID.
"It's Tippin."
He nodded as she pressed talk button.
"Hi, sweetie. I'll be home soon. What did you want to watch tonight?"
Sark watched as Allison's demeanor changed. She does have feelings for him. Deeper than I could imagine.
"We've already watched 'My Girl Friday' three times!" she exclaimed with a laugh. "Fine. Whatever you say, Will Tippin. I love you, too." As she closed the phone, she looked up at Sark.
"I should go."
He reached out and touched her hand. "If you need anything, just give me a call."
"I will, Alex." With another quick kiss to his lips, she turned on her heels and walked out of the warehouse.
He waited until he heard her get into her car and drive away. He reached into his front suit pocket and pulled the silver locket he'd gotten for her over the holiday.
"I'll find a way to reverse the procedure, and I'll make sure that you'll wear this again."