Spoilers: We'll say through "Phase One".
Disclaimers: I don't own Alias or any of the characters depicted here. I don't own any laundromats. I don't own DeBeers. Sigh.
Author's Note: This is set three years into the future. We'll assume Sloane and Sark are still causing trouble, separately, and the rest is explained as we go along.
**************
He had entered the laundromat seventeen minutes earlier. He waits.
She comes in the side door, hair bound up in a scarf, dressed in shapeless gray. Ostensibly, she blends in with a hundred other poor women on this gray industrial street in a gray industrial district.
But she could never blend in. A beautiful face, a beautiful form, could be obscured by the right clothing and the wrong makeup, but never erased. She shines in that laundromat, just as she had shone in drab prison garb, just as she had shone in a long tank top and baggy jogging pants, walking into another laundromat, so long ago.
He waits, sitting rigidly in a chair, looking ungainly and out of place. He was is out of place in the wrinkled khakis and untucked buttondown as his customary suit would have been in the laundromat. Yet here they are, two out-of-place people, pretending desperately to be something they are not.
That was their story, no matter when it was told.
She does not look at him, except from the corner of her eye, and shuffles over to a washing machine, emptying the contents of a striped cotton bag into it, filling it with quarters. She pushes in the money with a swoosh and a chink, closes the lid, and waits. Her head is bent over the machine, one arm stretched out before her, resting on it, and a long strand of hair swinging down and blocking her view of him.
He shifts in his chair, uncomfortabe, and when she does not move he crosses to the far side of the small room, away from her. A young man, a student, is reading from a thick book in one corner, waiting for his reds to dry. They cannot speak until he leaves. He silently curses at the younger man.
The younger man glances up from his book and looks at her, facing away from him, bent over the washer, wearing shapeless gray. He sees it, too. She is old enough to be his mother, but it's difficult to ignore a beautiful woman, and impossible not to notice her at all.
After sixteen minutes more, the dryer buzzes with a sound that jolts through the silence, and the young man shuts his book with a thunk and carefully folds the now-dry reds, placing them one by one into the basket. The others wait, even while he folds his underwear. They keep waiting.
He is finally out the door, and the older man strides across the room and pushes the door lock; it slowly slides shut. He flips the "open" sign to "closed" and lifts the "out to lunch" sign from its resting place on the floor. He waits, hands pressed on the glass of the door, and does not look at her. She looks up, staring at the wall in front of her and the sign that says "DO NOT OVERLOAD MACHINES" and does not turn to look at him when she speaks. "What is it you want?"
He turns to face her, only to find himself staring at her back.
"You called me here."
She still does not face him. She swallows and stares at the wall. "I'm not going to say any and everything. Tell me what it is, specifically, that you want to know."
"Why are you still working with Sark?" He tries not to let the anger creep into his voice. He fails.
Her back stiffens, but she gives no other sign she heard him.
"I am not here to play your games."
She finally turns around. "I'm not trying to play games, Jack. If you want information, you're going to have to ask me something I can answer." Why she can't answer his first question, she never says.
"Fine." He crosses his arms. "We have learned of a Rambaldi diagram we have reason to believe is in Sloane's possession."
"He has a number of things in his possession."
"It bears some resemblance to a DNA sequence." He is staring at her now, his eyes hard and cold. She glances up, away from him, toward the wall above his head.
"He doesn't have it yet; he's been trying to acquire it. It's hidden in the frame behind another painting at the Guggenheim. I don't know more than that."
"And that's all the information you're going to give me?"
"Was there something else you were after?" She inclines her eyebrow toward him. This time he looks away.
"Why did Sark leave Africa so quickly?"
"He had to meet with a contact in Europe. You won't want to spend much time on that. He's been laundering conflict diamonds and selling them to DeBeers through a supposedly reputable agent. It's just one way he finances his organization."
He continues to stare at her, and this time makes no attempt to hide the anger. "And you continue to work with this man?"
She meets his glare with her own. "I continue to work with you, as well. Are you going to fault me for that?"
"There are.other ways."
"I'm not here to discuss my decisions with you. You have your methods, I have mine. That was our agreement."
He is quiet at this, but no less angry. Neither of them looks away from the other's glare until she speaks.
"Are you going to honor our agreement?"
He crosses to the other side of the small room, close to where she is standing. An unopened laundry bag lies on the floor next to his chair. He reaches into it and pulls out a white envelope, square-shaped and made of fine linen paper, with a deckle edge. He steps closer to her and holds it out. She takes it, quickly, from his hand, opening it with swift, deft motions. He notes how quickly she moves -- as if to keep her hands from trembling.
She slides out a flat card, printed on fine, thick stock, with an iridescent pearl-colored border and embossed black script. It is elegant, and simple. With it come a smaller card and a reply envelope, and a wallet- size picture that flutters to the ground. She stoops down to retrieve the picture, dusting it carefully off with the hem of her sweater, handling it gingerly, touching only the edges.
The two people in the picture smile back at them, radiant, beautiful. She stares at the picture for a long moment before tucking it carefully back inside the envelope. She turns her attention back to the card. "Saturday, the seventeenth of September," she reads.
"You could come, you know."
She looks up at him sharply.
"If you were to cooperate, I'm certain I could make arrangements--"
"For what?" she spits. "To play right into their hands? To live in that glass cage again? For a trial? A prison? What would I have to gain by that?"
"Arrangements can be made. You could be shown leniency--"
"I have seen their leniency." Her tone is filled with contempt. She looks at him for a long moment, and her tone softens. "I prefer yours."
He breaks her gaze, embarrassed, angered. "Don't mistake our business arrangement for some form of charity. You've had more of that than you deserve."
"You're right; I have." She glances back over her shoulder, out the glass door. "Tell me, is it business that keeps you from signaling you associates? I'm sure they could be here in minutes."
"How do you know they won't?"
She smiles, just a little. "I don't. Just as you don't know that mine won't be here. We all take our risks."
He snorts. "Your associates won't show up until it's in your best interest. You've never taken a step that wasn't calculated in advance."
She tilts her head to the side, studying his expression. "You think I'm as simple as that?"
"I think you're dedicated, above all else, to winning. To proving yourself infallible."
If she is hurt, she does not show it. When she answers, she drops her voice, but not her eyes. "We all have our weaknesses, Jack."
She turns away from him, tucking everything back into the envelope and the envelope into the waistband of her skirt, lifting the bulky sweater momentarily and then smoothing it back down. His eyes never leave her.
"Are you going to attempt to come?"
She turns back to him. "I don't know. When I decide, I won't tell you."
"It would be better if there were no.distractions."
"Do you think I would be so foolish as to cause a distraction?"
He looks away, his jaw tightening, then going slack, deciding whether to tell her. He finally turns back, his eyes unreadable. "Sydney was cleaning out a box of her old things the other day. She found a book.a poetry book."
She lowers her head and purses her lips as realization dawns. "One that you brought me?"
"She turned it over to the CIA for analysis. When they decoded the letters hidden there--" he breaks off, part of him not wanting to continue, to inflict sorrow, part of him wanting to go on, to inflict pain. "It was the order to kill William Vaughn."
She does not look at him; her lips are tight and thin. When she finally brings her face up to meet his, it is resigned, collected, professional. It is the face he sees from her most often.
"I am who I am, Jack. You know that."
"Yes, I do." He is resigned, collected, professional. "I only want to stress to you the need for.discretion."
"Have you ever known me not to exercise discretion?"
His eyes look past her, back in time, and for a moment, he almost looks as if he might smile. "At times."
She does smile at him, her smile growing broader until it reflects in her eyes. But the moment flickers away, and she grows more serious. "You know I would never act outside our daughter's best interest."
"Do I?" She does not answer, letting him, here as always, draw his own conclusions.
"What role are you taking?" she asks.
"I don't know yet."
"And that disappoints you?"
"Sydney is a grown woman and I will respect any decision she makes."
She smiles again. "You've rehearsed that."
He doesn't answer.
"There's time, yet. I'm sure she'll make the right decision."
He snaps back into business mode. "Is there anything else?"
She tilts her head to the side a bit, smiling. "Have I made you uncomfortable?"
"We've been here for nearly an hour. I just don't want anything to appear out of place."
"Like you in a laundromat?" She laughs. He looks down at his rumpled clothing and untucked shirt. "It's happened before." He meets her eyes as he says this, and she continues smiling as her laughter trails off.
"That was a long time ago." She takes a step toward him, challenging him. He does not move; he does not drop his eyes. She takes another step. And a third. She is inches from him, her face inches from his, and she has a teasing gleam in her eyes.
"Not too long to remember," she says.
"No, but a long time," he answers. She senses he will not back down. She leans in, slowly, and when she kisses him his jaw is set and his lips are tight. Then she can feel him relax, feel his arm wrap around her, feel him let go for a moment as passionate as it is all too brief. She pulls away from him, already trying to set herself back into business mode. He takes a moment longer, looking at her -- looking, not merely watching, as he always does. But the moment is brief, and she can see his defenses go back up, his eyes go dim as his jaw tightens again. She does not speak, she turns back to the striped cotton bag and slings it over her shoulder, ignoring the fact its contents are still in the washer. She walks silently to the door, sliding the lock slowly open before she steps outside.
He waits a moment before he follows where she walked, stooping to pick up a small item that slipped from her hand. It is a woman's bracelet, flimsy and cheap, made of tiny beads. He drops it in the lost and found box as he gathers his own bag and walks to the door. He had glanced at the bracelet for only a second, but it was enough. He counted fifteen red beads, and one blue, fifteen days until he is to meet her again, at the docks by the lake.
He walks out the door, and she has already disappeared down the dingy street. He promises himself he will not do it, he will not meet her, she can stand by the docks all day and look for him, she can wait as long as it takes for her to realize he is not hers to summon, that he does not need her for anything.
It is the same promise he has broken, twenty-six times before.
Disclaimers: I don't own Alias or any of the characters depicted here. I don't own any laundromats. I don't own DeBeers. Sigh.
Author's Note: This is set three years into the future. We'll assume Sloane and Sark are still causing trouble, separately, and the rest is explained as we go along.
**************
He had entered the laundromat seventeen minutes earlier. He waits.
She comes in the side door, hair bound up in a scarf, dressed in shapeless gray. Ostensibly, she blends in with a hundred other poor women on this gray industrial street in a gray industrial district.
But she could never blend in. A beautiful face, a beautiful form, could be obscured by the right clothing and the wrong makeup, but never erased. She shines in that laundromat, just as she had shone in drab prison garb, just as she had shone in a long tank top and baggy jogging pants, walking into another laundromat, so long ago.
He waits, sitting rigidly in a chair, looking ungainly and out of place. He was is out of place in the wrinkled khakis and untucked buttondown as his customary suit would have been in the laundromat. Yet here they are, two out-of-place people, pretending desperately to be something they are not.
That was their story, no matter when it was told.
She does not look at him, except from the corner of her eye, and shuffles over to a washing machine, emptying the contents of a striped cotton bag into it, filling it with quarters. She pushes in the money with a swoosh and a chink, closes the lid, and waits. Her head is bent over the machine, one arm stretched out before her, resting on it, and a long strand of hair swinging down and blocking her view of him.
He shifts in his chair, uncomfortabe, and when she does not move he crosses to the far side of the small room, away from her. A young man, a student, is reading from a thick book in one corner, waiting for his reds to dry. They cannot speak until he leaves. He silently curses at the younger man.
The younger man glances up from his book and looks at her, facing away from him, bent over the washer, wearing shapeless gray. He sees it, too. She is old enough to be his mother, but it's difficult to ignore a beautiful woman, and impossible not to notice her at all.
After sixteen minutes more, the dryer buzzes with a sound that jolts through the silence, and the young man shuts his book with a thunk and carefully folds the now-dry reds, placing them one by one into the basket. The others wait, even while he folds his underwear. They keep waiting.
He is finally out the door, and the older man strides across the room and pushes the door lock; it slowly slides shut. He flips the "open" sign to "closed" and lifts the "out to lunch" sign from its resting place on the floor. He waits, hands pressed on the glass of the door, and does not look at her. She looks up, staring at the wall in front of her and the sign that says "DO NOT OVERLOAD MACHINES" and does not turn to look at him when she speaks. "What is it you want?"
He turns to face her, only to find himself staring at her back.
"You called me here."
She still does not face him. She swallows and stares at the wall. "I'm not going to say any and everything. Tell me what it is, specifically, that you want to know."
"Why are you still working with Sark?" He tries not to let the anger creep into his voice. He fails.
Her back stiffens, but she gives no other sign she heard him.
"I am not here to play your games."
She finally turns around. "I'm not trying to play games, Jack. If you want information, you're going to have to ask me something I can answer." Why she can't answer his first question, she never says.
"Fine." He crosses his arms. "We have learned of a Rambaldi diagram we have reason to believe is in Sloane's possession."
"He has a number of things in his possession."
"It bears some resemblance to a DNA sequence." He is staring at her now, his eyes hard and cold. She glances up, away from him, toward the wall above his head.
"He doesn't have it yet; he's been trying to acquire it. It's hidden in the frame behind another painting at the Guggenheim. I don't know more than that."
"And that's all the information you're going to give me?"
"Was there something else you were after?" She inclines her eyebrow toward him. This time he looks away.
"Why did Sark leave Africa so quickly?"
"He had to meet with a contact in Europe. You won't want to spend much time on that. He's been laundering conflict diamonds and selling them to DeBeers through a supposedly reputable agent. It's just one way he finances his organization."
He continues to stare at her, and this time makes no attempt to hide the anger. "And you continue to work with this man?"
She meets his glare with her own. "I continue to work with you, as well. Are you going to fault me for that?"
"There are.other ways."
"I'm not here to discuss my decisions with you. You have your methods, I have mine. That was our agreement."
He is quiet at this, but no less angry. Neither of them looks away from the other's glare until she speaks.
"Are you going to honor our agreement?"
He crosses to the other side of the small room, close to where she is standing. An unopened laundry bag lies on the floor next to his chair. He reaches into it and pulls out a white envelope, square-shaped and made of fine linen paper, with a deckle edge. He steps closer to her and holds it out. She takes it, quickly, from his hand, opening it with swift, deft motions. He notes how quickly she moves -- as if to keep her hands from trembling.
She slides out a flat card, printed on fine, thick stock, with an iridescent pearl-colored border and embossed black script. It is elegant, and simple. With it come a smaller card and a reply envelope, and a wallet- size picture that flutters to the ground. She stoops down to retrieve the picture, dusting it carefully off with the hem of her sweater, handling it gingerly, touching only the edges.
The two people in the picture smile back at them, radiant, beautiful. She stares at the picture for a long moment before tucking it carefully back inside the envelope. She turns her attention back to the card. "Saturday, the seventeenth of September," she reads.
"You could come, you know."
She looks up at him sharply.
"If you were to cooperate, I'm certain I could make arrangements--"
"For what?" she spits. "To play right into their hands? To live in that glass cage again? For a trial? A prison? What would I have to gain by that?"
"Arrangements can be made. You could be shown leniency--"
"I have seen their leniency." Her tone is filled with contempt. She looks at him for a long moment, and her tone softens. "I prefer yours."
He breaks her gaze, embarrassed, angered. "Don't mistake our business arrangement for some form of charity. You've had more of that than you deserve."
"You're right; I have." She glances back over her shoulder, out the glass door. "Tell me, is it business that keeps you from signaling you associates? I'm sure they could be here in minutes."
"How do you know they won't?"
She smiles, just a little. "I don't. Just as you don't know that mine won't be here. We all take our risks."
He snorts. "Your associates won't show up until it's in your best interest. You've never taken a step that wasn't calculated in advance."
She tilts her head to the side, studying his expression. "You think I'm as simple as that?"
"I think you're dedicated, above all else, to winning. To proving yourself infallible."
If she is hurt, she does not show it. When she answers, she drops her voice, but not her eyes. "We all have our weaknesses, Jack."
She turns away from him, tucking everything back into the envelope and the envelope into the waistband of her skirt, lifting the bulky sweater momentarily and then smoothing it back down. His eyes never leave her.
"Are you going to attempt to come?"
She turns back to him. "I don't know. When I decide, I won't tell you."
"It would be better if there were no.distractions."
"Do you think I would be so foolish as to cause a distraction?"
He looks away, his jaw tightening, then going slack, deciding whether to tell her. He finally turns back, his eyes unreadable. "Sydney was cleaning out a box of her old things the other day. She found a book.a poetry book."
She lowers her head and purses her lips as realization dawns. "One that you brought me?"
"She turned it over to the CIA for analysis. When they decoded the letters hidden there--" he breaks off, part of him not wanting to continue, to inflict sorrow, part of him wanting to go on, to inflict pain. "It was the order to kill William Vaughn."
She does not look at him; her lips are tight and thin. When she finally brings her face up to meet his, it is resigned, collected, professional. It is the face he sees from her most often.
"I am who I am, Jack. You know that."
"Yes, I do." He is resigned, collected, professional. "I only want to stress to you the need for.discretion."
"Have you ever known me not to exercise discretion?"
His eyes look past her, back in time, and for a moment, he almost looks as if he might smile. "At times."
She does smile at him, her smile growing broader until it reflects in her eyes. But the moment flickers away, and she grows more serious. "You know I would never act outside our daughter's best interest."
"Do I?" She does not answer, letting him, here as always, draw his own conclusions.
"What role are you taking?" she asks.
"I don't know yet."
"And that disappoints you?"
"Sydney is a grown woman and I will respect any decision she makes."
She smiles again. "You've rehearsed that."
He doesn't answer.
"There's time, yet. I'm sure she'll make the right decision."
He snaps back into business mode. "Is there anything else?"
She tilts her head to the side a bit, smiling. "Have I made you uncomfortable?"
"We've been here for nearly an hour. I just don't want anything to appear out of place."
"Like you in a laundromat?" She laughs. He looks down at his rumpled clothing and untucked shirt. "It's happened before." He meets her eyes as he says this, and she continues smiling as her laughter trails off.
"That was a long time ago." She takes a step toward him, challenging him. He does not move; he does not drop his eyes. She takes another step. And a third. She is inches from him, her face inches from his, and she has a teasing gleam in her eyes.
"Not too long to remember," she says.
"No, but a long time," he answers. She senses he will not back down. She leans in, slowly, and when she kisses him his jaw is set and his lips are tight. Then she can feel him relax, feel his arm wrap around her, feel him let go for a moment as passionate as it is all too brief. She pulls away from him, already trying to set herself back into business mode. He takes a moment longer, looking at her -- looking, not merely watching, as he always does. But the moment is brief, and she can see his defenses go back up, his eyes go dim as his jaw tightens again. She does not speak, she turns back to the striped cotton bag and slings it over her shoulder, ignoring the fact its contents are still in the washer. She walks silently to the door, sliding the lock slowly open before she steps outside.
He waits a moment before he follows where she walked, stooping to pick up a small item that slipped from her hand. It is a woman's bracelet, flimsy and cheap, made of tiny beads. He drops it in the lost and found box as he gathers his own bag and walks to the door. He had glanced at the bracelet for only a second, but it was enough. He counted fifteen red beads, and one blue, fifteen days until he is to meet her again, at the docks by the lake.
He walks out the door, and she has already disappeared down the dingy street. He promises himself he will not do it, he will not meet her, she can stand by the docks all day and look for him, she can wait as long as it takes for her to realize he is not hers to summon, that he does not need her for anything.
It is the same promise he has broken, twenty-six times before.