Story: Beyond All Limits
Author: Steph (stephanie406@juno.com)
Disclaimer: Don't own Alias, or any characters thus portrayed. It all belongs to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot Productions, ABC, etc.
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Spoilers/Summary : post "After Thirty Years"; Vaughn's alive, and Sydney's been captured
Distribution: I'd love it if you would, just let me know where it's going! CD all day any day!
AN: Well, well well… The final chapter has arrived! Thanks much to my wonderful betas (Becky, Airebella, and Pax)… Let me know what you think, and keep the harassment up for the sequel! (Also keep an eye out for me to start posting that soon. It's called "Once Upon A Time"). Let's get started shall we? *grin*
Steph
He couldn't remember how many days it had now been since he'd last gotten sleep. It didn't seem to matter anymore. What mattered was that he loved his daughter, and she loved him despite it all, and that he was going to do his absolute best to get her back safe and alive. Heaven help those that came between a determined Jack Bristow and his mission, especially if it was of the personal nature. And Sydney definitely fell into that category.
Seeing as how the flight to Egypt was going to be roughly eighteen hours at best, more than twenty at worst, Jack took advantage of the time and locked himself into the bedroom that came standard on CIA issue business jets. He'd collapsed on the bed before the plane had even left the ground, and by the time it had leveled off, Jack was drifting far from the world of reality and pain, in a state that wasn't quite sleep nor awareness.
And so, he could not forget where he was, where he was going, and for whom he was going. He tossed and turned as he drifted dreams in his restless state of sleep.
Old memories, long been forgotten or buried, rose from the graveyard to haunt him. He remembered Laura as he'd met her, young and foolish, with sparkling brown eyes and shining long hair. Well, not so young, she was just finishing school at the time, eager to begin teaching ripe, willing minds. He remembered thinking of her as open and trusting, almost childlike in a sense. Her petite stature had lent to the image, and so on their wedding day she'd looked almost like a kid in an elaborate game of dress-up. His child bride. He'd been so smitten with her, could remember how his heart had been swollen with love and pride that he'd been her chosen one. Four years later, when she sat in the hospital bed holding Sydney for the first time, her hands skimming over the tiny body to count fingers and toes and determine who's chin and nose the baby had, Jack had gained the impression that both of the tiny lives he'd been entrusted with were far too precious a gift for a man like himself. Laura'd held an enthusiasm for life that he'd prayed that his daughter would inherit.
But Laura was no more. Laura had been nothing but an act put on by the Russians. She was an invention, a figment of the imagination almost. And to try and remember her was like standing outside on a hot, humid day, looking up the road, imagining that the shadows of the trees that crossed the road shimmered like water in the desert. Not real—a mirage, nothing more.
Sydney, though, was very real. True, she too lived a life that was nearly a complete lie most of the time. He felt she was paying too high a price for circumstances that were beyond her control, that had begun before her birth. This trip was a definitive reminder of that. Enough so that Jack woke from his restless sleep to find himself in a cold sweat, his mind still plagued with images of Laura, and Sydney, and the family they had never really had the chance to become. Would never be.
Jack shook his head angrily, trying to erase the images from where they lay burned on his retinas, unrelenting in their irony. Angry with himself for, twenty years later, still holding onto a dream that would never reality. That he couldn't allow himself to bring into being. For knowing what had happened, what was real versus what wasn't, and for still wishing he could go back in time to the point in his life where happiness and love had reigned. A time when he'd been young and naive, an innocent kid who'd grown up on a farm in the country, with dreams that had been unspoiled by the negativity of reality. Even knowing what that life, his decisions, had cost him, cost Sydney, cost his country; yet still some small part of him wanted to go back to who he'd been, back before it had all become so complicated.
And so maybe, that was why he wasn't surprised when his CIA issue cell rang a few hours later. He'd been sprawled in a La-Z-Boy, still locked in the plane's bedroom, his suit jacket tossed somewhere out of sight, his tie loosened and the top buttons on his shirt undone. Jack had discovered the mini bar on the way to the suite's bathroom, and was nursing his second rather large glass of whiskey. "Jack Bristow" he said, answering the phone before it could reach its third annoyingly insistent ring. He listened quietly, controlled, as an accented voice he recognized as belonging to Alexander Khasinau gave him orders to follow once the plane he was known to be on landed and disembarked.
He was told to drive out to the pyramid. Alone. And unarmed. Jack wasn't surprised in the least to discover that her operation had anticipated CIA actions—had kept tabs on their (his) movements.
But nevertheless, surprised or not, when Jack heard the click that indicated the call had been ended, he angrily punched the 'End' button and heaved the phone across the room, satisfied at the hearty thump it made as it contacted the wall before falling gently into the plush carpeting.
He felt the control starting to slip, knew it was beyond his control, hated that he couldn't grab hold of that elusive thread that was unraveling his sanity, all that he knew to be well and true.
Thankfully, no one had investigated the cause of the noise, and Jack had gone back to his whiskey to seek comfort, understanding and solace.
He'd retrieved the phone only after the plane had landed (Cairo, Egypt) in a dusty excuse for a nearly abandoned airport. Sure enough, he found his transportation just where Khasinau had said it would be, with the keys hidden under the driver's seat. It was the desert appropriate mode of transportation—a camouflage painted Hummer. To say that the fellow agents he'd left behind were disgruntled and upset that their carefully laid plans had been shot to pieces (by a woman, and a Russian, nonetheless) was putting it mildly. Jack was more than sure that Devlin had heard about it many times over, and in fact his phone had rung, but Jack had turned if off rather than answer it. What would the point be? A GPS tracking system was mounted to the dash and had been programmed with his location and kept him driving along the hot, humid and dusty road towards his final destination. One arm dangled out of the open window as the other sat on the top of the steering wheel. Gusts of dry air sifted through his hair, carelessly disheveling and upsetting the usual orderliness of it.
It had been a long time coming, this meeting of two people who'd not laid eyes on each other in decades. More than just people—former lovers (for their bodies had known no names together, no personalities, no hidden agendas). And Jack's mind couldn't help but to wander, to think of what she would look like, to wonder if time had been kind or harsh to her. And if he were to touch her, would his hands remember the curves and planes of her body?
He knew that it was dangerous to be thinking this way, because after all that had happened, he should hate her with a fervor that would rival the passionate love he'd once known for Laura (the ever present ghost, the alter ego). His mind would forever be fighting itself, wanting to believe that Laura hadn't been a total lie and that maybe Irina wasn't as cold-hearted as he'd been led to believe (that he knew).
But he wanted that tug of war between feelings and rationale, between mind and heart to finally be over. So he was here, as she'd requested, abandoning his vehicle and warily letting the two armed men that had approached frisk him. Once they were satisfied that he was clean (he even left his cell phone sitting on the passenger seat), they turned and walked into the pyramid, knowing he'd follow them.
One step inside the ancient structure and his senses were assaulted with the musty rank smell of a building that had been long shut up and only recently reopened to sunlight and circulating air. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the low lighting after having been in the bright desert sunlight, then darting around quickly as he absorbed the room. He continued following the men that now stood at the end of a hallway waiting for him impatiently. And even though he felt surprisingly uneasy and even nervous, Jack walked slowly, unconsciously turning in the middle of rooms as he stared up at the vaulted ceilings and noted where the gold decorations had once adorned every surface imaginable. Paintings recording important life events graced the walls, portraying births and deaths, marriages and wars, triumphs and losses alike. It was almost too easy to picture the rooms as they had once been in all their glory.
"It's about time you finally got to share my love of ancient Egyptian history, Jack," a voice from a corner of the room said. He'd been absorbing his surroundings, but not so much so that he had failed to notice that his guards had left without him. Not so occupied he hadn't felt her electric presence as he'd entered the room. Not so much that her low throaty voice didn't come as a surprise. He turned, slowly, towards the direction the voice had floated from, a voice he'd valiantly tried for years, unsuccessfully, to banish from his mind.
He'd opened his mouth to say something, but she emerged from the shadows and he forgot whatever he might have had the presence of mind to say. She still moved quietly and purposefully, every movement graceful and elegant. She'd aged, as had he, but she seemed to be still as beautiful as the day he'd first met her. Age had not diminished the beauty she'd passed onto their child.
"Hello, Jack" she said softly, seating herself. For the first time, he noted the chairs that sat opposite one another next to him, and a crate that sat in between with a softly glowing lamp squarely in the middle. He sat down in the empty chair, nodding to her in acknowledgement.
He finally found his voice and asked "Where's Sydney?" A flash of disappointment in her eyes did not escape his notice. So she still felt something as well, he mused, knowing the only explanation for the fleeting look was in response to his asking after their daughter and nothing more personal or friendly. He wanted to congratulate himself on hurting her in some small way after all the pain she'd put him though.
"She's not here." Her chin lifted as she said it, her voice carefully modulated to reveal nothing. He knew the trick well, used it often. Could finally tell when she employed the tactic.
"But that doesn't answer the question, Irina," he told her in a tight voice.
She smiled softly. "In an odd way, Jack, it's good to hear you finally say my real name…"
He chose not to respond other than to send her a withering look. She sighed heavily. "I've sent her away on a… mission, if you will."
Jack quirked an eyebrow at her, but his look demanded an explanation.
"The 'Prophecy', Jack. Ultimately, this is what it's all about. Sydney plays a rather large role in the fulfillment of the Prophecy. I'm afraid that her involvement will require the better part of the next year." She fell silent, then resumed. "I'm sorry, Jack, but you won't be rescuing her today. Or any time this year. Your CIA can follow me from city to city, nosing along the faintly warm trail I leave behind. It's been amusing to play with all your friends, but I'm afraid it will do you no good in terms of locating Sydney. Precious few know where she's been taken to."
"Why are you doing this to her? To me? To the people that care about her? If you're just trying to prove something, you've well done that" he told her coldly. Getting angry because he was slipping, losing control, letting his emotions rise and take over.
She sighed. "Jack—" she began.
"Save it," he spat, "I don't want to hear your excuses and your lies. Because that's about all you've ever let out of your mouth. At least to me. And look where that got us all. Look at what you've done to our daughter, who was nothing more than an innocent bystander until you intervened. Again. Stop playing God, Irina."
She eyed him silently, her shoulders slowly sinking into a slump. "I'm sorry, Jack," she whispered, her eyes staring at a spot on the floor. She rose suddenly and walked away. She looked back from the doorway, and he could see the tears glistening in her eyes. "Truly, I'm sorry," she repeated, "but this is just the way it has to be."
And then she was gone, the guards were back and he was 'escorted' outside, where he stood blinking in the sunlight blindly after the door thumped shut behind him.
As Jack shuffled tiredly towards the Hummer, he felt his age. And he wanted to scream and shout and berate the God he no longer believed in would allow something like this to happen. He wanted to turn around and force his way back inside, to beat Sydney's location out of someone, anyone. But for maybe the first time in his life, he felt completely helpless and totally aware of how little he could do. And he'd never wanted so much to just let it all go, to stop giving a damn, to put his head down on the steering wheel and cry. But he wouldn't allow himself that luxury more than once in a span of a few days, even if this time it was for all he'd lost instead of all he stood to lose. As he started the vehicle and gunned the engine, he knew what he would have to do. That maybe, despite it all, or maybe to spite it all, he was going to do what she'd told him not to. He was going to track her down, as hungrily and voraciously as a lion that smelled blood.
Jack smiled in grim satisfaction. No, this wasn't over yet. He wouldn't let it be. Pity the person that stood between him and his daughter now.
Addendum Author's Note: Okay, apparently in your great haste to read the chapter you skipped over the Author's Note at the top. So this is your second notice that, yes, this is the last chapter, and YES there IS a sequel. LOL. You people never cease to amuse me… *grin*
