Daughter of Darkness

Chapter 8: Truth Sucks

By Gaz Destiny

Rated: PG-13

Spoiler: Snowman

Disclaimer: the show and its respective characters (except for Claudia and my ingenious plot) were created by J. J. Abrams and are owned by ABC.

A/N: um…the quote at the beginning of this chapter is a poem by Ashlee Ramirez, she's a high school student in Texas. I actually went to middle school with her up here in Maine till she moved near the end of the eighth grade year. I was never technically friends with her, though I did work with her on a bunch of projects, so um, that's my small claim to fame…oh, wait, no, I have another one, my godsister's friends older sister was an extra in titanic, her character died.

Feedback: (ONE MORE REVIEW!!!) I want to thank my one reviewer, and here is my little response bit:

Firefly: thanks for continuing to review, I'm glad someone takes the time to leave a review. About leaving out the whole Sydney finding out that Claudia has to know Michael I hope the little bit I have in this chapter helps. Yes, I do have this story planned out pretty much, and it's not going to go on that much longer, I'm hoping to get the ending I have done as soon as I've set up the little bit of plot I've got going, this in a way is probably going to end up as a prequel to whatever else I have going.

It's strange how some people think one person is one way
When they don't even know the person or know that person's day

Take me for example what do you think
The one thing you don't know is my life it stinks

I'm harassed and accused of on a daily basis
By those who I love all I can do is face this

They hit me they yell they holler they scream
I still have no clue as to why they choose me

It's just like I'm a target for all of their pain
When something goes wrong I'm the only one sane

But even through this I try to keep quiet
I try not to cry so I don't start a riot

Even still after this I still help them out
By not telling anyone how they kick and they shout

To do this I chose to make my life a lie
So you couldn't see all my tears and my cries

But now I'm afraid that they've gone way too far
Now I'll tell everyone I'll tell one and all

No secrets no lies just the plain basic truth
In my house there lives all sorts of abuse

--Ashlee Ramirez(The Truth)

She reached for the counter as she leaned towards the toilet again. Her hand hit the ceramic soap dispenser, knocking it to the floor with a loud crash as it broke, though she didn't notice as she threw-up.

"Claudia is everything—" Michael started, trailing off when he'd gotten into the bathroom in time to see her lean towards the toilet again.

~*~

Two months had gone by since she'd gotten back. She'd been working in the bank part of Credit Duphane the whole time in Arvin's place as the executive bank president, and there'd been no news of her getting moved back downstairs. She and Sydney had met in the new CIA operations center and revealed that they were indeed both double agents.

~*~

"So you're the other person in SD-6," Claudia said, plastering on a smile, more for the fact that she was tired than that she was uncomfortable or being insincere.

"Yeah," Sydney nodded. "I was kind of wondering how you met Vaughn."

"Oh, yeah, Eric's my handler, and he worked with us on several things, it was inevitable," Claudia answered. "We used to have a law class together, so we could easily have met through that, that's the story we're using. I borrowed notes from him, yadda yadda yadda. Actually, if I remember correctly, you were trying to get me to go out with him or something the next day, we were hanging out at that club we used to hang out at all the time."

"I just remember that," Sydney said, before they shared a small laugh at the irony.

"Do you have any idea why we're here?" Claudia asked, after a minute.

"Not a clue."

~*~

While Claudia was getting used to a normal life, Sloane was doing some research; he wished he'd done sooner.

Not even three months after she'd gone to London, Claudia and several of the secretaries at the embassy had gone out to party hour at a local bar. There, after several drinks, they had been joined by Sark and several other gentlemen. The three women she was with seemed to know Sark and his three companions, welcoming them to the table as if they were all old friends. This continued to happen several times a week for much of the time that she was there.

Claudia knew about Sark, Sloane knew this having told her himself, yet she had 'accidentally' forgotten to include in her report that she had met with Sark on such numerous occasions.

After being in London for nine months and six months of meeting Sark and the three other men with the other secretaries at happy hour, she started meeting Sark alone. They'd always meet at different clubs and restaurants, never the same one in a row. There would be periods where they didn't meet; these were times when SD-6 had traced Sark doing other things.

Then, Phoenix made her appearance on the scene. She appeared only a few times, silent on Sark's arm, acting as a witness to his largest deals. Claudia was never around on the occasions when Phoenix was seen with Sark in London.

~*~

"Morning," Claudia said cheerfully, walking into the sunny kitchen, still dressed in a dark blue blouse and black pants.

"Morning, how are you feeling?" Michael asked, it'd been several days since she'd smashed the soap dispenser and she'd been sick everyone of them.

"Better, I've got a doctors appointment this afternoon," she answered, sitting at the table, coffee in hand.

"You don't think you might be…" he started to ask, trailing off as she obviously picked up on what he was thinking.

"No! No, I-I can't be, it's-it's not—no," she said shaking her head. "Not now, everything's just starting to fall into place. It—no."

"What if—" he started to say.

"No," she said cutting him off with a shake of her head.

"We have to talk about this sometime," he said after a minute.

"I know," she nodded, closing her eyes for a second. Then, opening them, she asked, "Do you want…"

"Someday, yeah, kids are great, just not now," he answered. "Do you?"

"Yeah, of course, just, now obviously isn't a good time, we're not even…"

"Right."

"Right."

The rest of breakfast was eaten in silence, occasionally broken as they tried unsuccessfully to start up another conversation.

~*~

The next few days passed with them trying to avoid going back to that topic as she waited for the doctor to call her back about several tests that had been done.

~*~

"Hello," she said picking up the phone, pausing in the middle of breaking up lettuce for that night's salad.

"Miss Sloane," a crisp voice said. "I'm Doctor Fell, I'm calling for Doctor Marks, he had to go out of town."

"Ok," she said, what else was there to say.

"Your test results came back, you had the flu that's going around," he told her.

"Thank you," she said before hanging up.

She went back to making the salad while a pot roast (one of her mother's recipes) cooked in the oven. By the time she'd finished, Michael was already there, helping her by setting the kitchen table.

"It was just the flu," she told him, a while later, halfway through dinner.

"Hmm?" he stopped cutting a slice of potato.

"The doctor called, I just had the flu," she said.

"Oh," he replied.

~*~

End A/N: bad place to end I know, but when you start something like that, you kinda gotta finish it off, and if I kept going with the next part, I'd never get it up by the time I got home (I'm writing this during Chorus on my laptop…we already had our final concert so we're just sitting around doing nothing for eighty minutes)…please remember I LIKE REVIEWS!!!