Title: Work and Play: Part VII
Author: AsianScaper
Fandom: Alias
Characters/Pairings: Lauren/Syd
Summary: AU: Lauren's plans are unexpectedly supplemented. Slash is at last gracing the page!
Spoilers: Season 3
Rating/Warnings: PG - for mature themes and language.
Genre: General/Adventure
Dedication To slash writers everywhere.
Feedback/Archiving: To ask would be very lovely.
Disclaimer: No offense is intended towards any government or the scientific community in general. This is in all things, a work of fiction. Characters aren't mine, except for the Reaper, the IT guy Raimes, Lauren's "men", Lt. Chekhov, and the "evil scientists" of the underground facility; I don't own the show because if I did, a lot of naughtiness would ensue.

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"They play with them like toys y'know?" Jin was explaining to Bae. "And then, after cutting off their hands, they replace them with these devices. Man, it's like something from a science fiction movie."

Bae looked nauseated, clutching his rifle and nervously caressing it. "Jin, that's terrible."

"I know! But we're looking at the future here!" Jin exclaimed, enamored by his revelations. "I mean, all the good that could come out of it!"

"You wouldn't be talking that way if you were the one who woke up with mechanized arms," Lauren said, appearing beside them.

"Well, I'm not," Jin said, only slightly troubled. "The end justifies the means, at least in our line of work." There was that hint of a debate there, daring her to run contrary to what he was saying. But she did not and only led them to what was an approximation of an eating establishment.

They fanned out, picking off food from a communal buffet that teemed at the sides with four kinds of meat in delicious sauces and fresh vegetables. Jin picked out a piece of chicken and bit into it, placing it unto his plate while licking his fingers. Lauren, used to his manners or lack thereof, took some of the roast and a side order or salad, going through the motions even if she was not hungry.

"They must pay serious money for food like this," Jin told his counterpart who was testing the beef with a fork.

It was nearly midnight and yet, five tables of the fifteen nearby were occupied with doctors from every profession. This particular shift was relatively tame, talking in whispers as though the night above ground existed here. Some of the busboys were cleaning recently vacated tables and it was one of these that the band of mercenaries all chose to sit in.

Lauren ate in silence, Jin speaking in that rude way of his, about the appalling scientific research done while spicing it with his own, more twisted theories. Except that beneath the surface, they all knew that maybe, just maybe, those unspeakable things were happening, too.

He enjoyed cutting Bae's appetite abruptly short with stories of animal organ transfusions into human bodies. The bigger man set aside his plate of steak while picking at his potato salad.

Halfway through their meal, Lauren cleared her throat. Both men quickly shut up, looking at her expectantly and neither of them daring to eat before she had spoken.

"I need to talk to Bristow."

"And why would you want to do that?" Jin hissed, dropping his utensils and leaning in so he would not have to raise his voice. "You're risking five million dollars on both of us! There is no way I'm going to help you carry out something crazy on an already illegal –and may I add, also crazy –operation!"

"Jin, stop being rude," Bae interjected, putting a hand on his shoulder which Jin brushed away fiercely.

"I am asking you because I trust you," Lauren said, very slowly. "And because you can get the job done."

Her face remained impassive but the fist holding her knife had turned white. Jin saw this and backed away, leaning against his chair, suddenly careful not to speak all inflections without prudence. With effort, his words came out, well-thought of and not instinctive, quite unlike his usual.

"Listen, sir, that's all well and good. We can do our jobs just fine, better than the best even. It's you we're worried about. Getting into a facility like this is next to impossible and finding her quarters, much less getting you inside will probably be one of the more reckless things we've done. Your men would follow you to whatever end but in this, they won't approve. We've already gotten this far."

Bae clucked. "Oh c'mon," he hailed. "I love a challenge; don't make such hasty generalizations." He grinned favorably at Lauren's direction.

She managed to smile haughtily, to put food into her mouth before chewing. Swallowing, Lauren lifted her head, locking gazes with Jin who sat adjacent to her.

Jin saw turmoil churning in the sea of her eyes, determination washing ashore, and an overabundance of questions that he had not expected to ever see at the end of both their careers. He looked away, unable to comprehend and threw his hands up in surrender, eating his words as he said them, "We're always behind you, Lauren. Where you lead, we follow."

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They should be looking for her by now, wondering why neither of them had contacted home base in nearly three days. Except that her hope began to sink into this abyss dug at the heart of her.

Distracting herself consisted of studying how many levels below ground she was being held, probably thirty floors down, at a junction rarely visited by anyone without red badges. Perpetually lit and no daylight to speak of, she could not tell how often security was refreshed. Every so often (and the intervals were shorter and shorter, her dread of the visit reducing time in a way that escaped logic), a person –she could never really tell anymore if it was a man or a woman –stepped into her cell and had her restrained.

It was a blue liquid, viscous that it hurt, poured from a sizeable syringe to her arm. With it came an incredible lethargy that lasted for as long as the next doze. She sank into her sheets, aware of everything around her: the sanitized smell of a hospital, the low purr of electricity, the click of the nurses' heels, the tapping of metal against metal when guards made their rounds.

Beyond that, there were the pains of twenty years crashing against her, raw and abiding. More often than not, she would bring her hand to her face and find it wet, tears streaming down the sides of her cheeks while her throat uttered nothing and her face remained slack.

Her father. Her mother. Sloane. Vaughn. Lauren. The reminiscence of torture that the psychiatric department at the agency had painstakingly kept at bay. Betrayals by friends. Like a waterfall, they cascaded, streaming down like lava over a rock, polishing her surface clean then slowly scratching 'til everything was red, and bleeding, and skinned.

The drugs cut away at her edges and there were times when the lady or the man –whatever it was –asked her questions and she would answer without thought.

Anger built in the core of her; anger at her mouth's indiscretion, anger at her tears, anger at the way she was kept like a trembling child who answered to their every whim.

She visibly cringed as the latches on the door clicked and the familiar harbinger of pain stepped in, its mouth covered in white fiber and those eyes hidden behind laboratory glasses. A guard stepped warily inside, talking into his collar. Sydney eyed the figure, noticing the sleek frame, the blond hair slipping past her cap. It was a woman, after all. She had been too drugged before to notice.

"Don't bother fighting."

I won't. I can't. Sydney looked up at the ceiling, a whimper escaping her throat as the guard held her down and thoughts she never knew would come, hovered with certainty. I won't. I can't. The man bruised her elbows and she winced.

"Sod it Bae," the lady said, her English accent thick. "Unhand her."

"Sorry, you wanted it to look convincing." The man quickly tucked his hands away and pointed to the door. But not before he winked at Syndey and said in Korean, "Hello, remember me?" It was one of Lauren's men, the one who was supposed to carry her to this dreadful, god-forsaken place before the other spoke and got punished. He continued, "I'll wait outside."

"What the…?" Sydney started, her speech slurred, her disbelief pulling everything to coherence. She looked from the retreating guard to the nurse and back.

Bae closed the door behind him, saying, "I'll knock twice when our fifteen minutes are over."

The woman in white turned to her, tearing her mask and disposing of her glasses. "I need you to listen." Lauren appeared beneath the wolf's clothing, ephemeral against the stark, facility lights as a faint blush painted the pale of her skin. The sleeves of her coat revealed camo over-alls.

"I don't know what missing a dose of this substance," she lifted the blue syringe and watched as Sydney withdrew from it almost instinctively, "will do to you." She threw the needle to the far end of the room. "But either way, I need to know how long you can hold out."

"I haven't…been…holding out at all," Sydney breathed.

"I suppose I ought to be grateful you aren't recovered," Lauren joked. "Or I'd get a serious beating, hey?" She removed her gloves hastily, rubbing her hands before she reached out for her. Sydney recoiled, her fists at the ready. Lauren seemed wary of her, conscious of Sydney's proficiency at self-defense. "Give me some credit, will you? I'm trying to help you."

"You wouldn't have subjected me to all this crap if you ever 'tried to help me'," Sydney spat, hatred gurgling in bursts that she, like everything else these days, could not control.

It was unlike her, to be so fervent, uncannily fueled by fury, as though intent on proving everyone wrong. The entire three days had seemed like a dizzying reel with demons she did not know burrowed at some hinter part of her.

Sydney was used to pressing forward, to filling all empty spaces with service but she was immobile here, prisoner and subject to the kind of defilement one could never be ready for –could never be trained for. But she was certainly trained for something else.

Finding what little strength she had, she pushed herself against Lauren Reed with as much ferocity as she could muster, her mind pondering groggily on how to disarm her as she grabbed Lauren's coat and executed an upper-cut between them.

She met with hard resistance. "Bullet-proof vest," Lauren whispered into her ear a bit mischievously, slightly surprised at her offensive but nonetheless allowing it.

They were in such close proximity that both could feel the other heaving against their chest. Lauren moved slightly away, if only to free her own hand, putting a finger up to Sydney's face, trying to unassumingly examine her for cuts or bruises. The touch was warm, as warm as Lauren always seemed to be and something in Sydney snapped.

"Damn…you," Sydney said, shoving Lauren against a corner and reaching for Lauren's hips as she groped for a weapon strapped there. "Why." She fumbled under Lauren's lab coat as her brain fogged up and made her try harder lest she fail completely. "Do you have to be…" She fought with Lauren for a handhold on the pistol. "So damned blithe about all this?"

Lauren, aware that time was ticking more quickly against their favor, grabbed Sydney's wrists and shoved them powerfully to her sides, using Sydney's momentum by sliding her sideways and about, such that Sydney was now pinned to the wall instead of her. Sydney grunted as the air fled her lungs. Lauren, for all her skill, was grateful that the other agent was either too tired or too drugged every time she attacked.

At that moment, Sydney understood why everyone who ever touched her had gloves on except when Loki read her.

Lauren held Sydney's wrists firmly and through that touch, Sydney wakened. With one, all-encompassing breath, she smelled the other woman, the flavors of the outside, and Lauren's doubt. She grew heady with the woman's scent, with memories of English country and cobbled roads. Through it all ran a string of heat, Lauren's palpable concern, that faint particle of warmth in the cavern of ice that filled her.

Lauren flowed into her unceasing, and just as the drugs had melted all partitions, this was no exception.

The blonde operative caught her and gently, she knelt as Sydney crumpled into her and whispered, "Damn it." Sydney beat at Lauren's shoulders with her fists, the strength gone from her attack as she lowered her head against Lauren's neck. "You didn't have to come back for me."

"We're a team," Lauren said, daring to look at her with some fondness, their foreheads barely touching while she smiled wearily, sadly.

The flow ended there and Sydney looked at her with the same peculiarity, wondering what lay beneath but this time, with little more than respect. Seeing that the other woman began to feel increasingly uncomfortable under that penetrating stare, Sydney blinked and looked sideways, frowning. Sighing against her cheek, Lauren felt Sydney's lassitude as she allowed Lauren to help her up.

Bae knocked twice and entered, gazing unquestioningly at them both. "Sir, it's time to go. This place will blow in ten minutes."

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Author's Notes: Special thanks to Meadow and rieh for pointing out flaws in the text and for the uplifting comments. I tousled about with the past chapters and removed some of Sydney's more edgy traits. For some reason, I particularly like this rescue scene; makes me feel kinda fluffy.

I'd like to know what you all think so don't hesitate to share your views with me! (Points at blue button at the bottom left corner of the page).