Title: She Wanted Storms
Author: schneck (agent blakeney at yahoo.com)
Fandom: Alias (Sark, Sydney)
Timeline: Future/AU
Rating: R for dark themes
Disclaimer: If I owned any of this, would I be this far in debt?
Summary: Sydney hires Sark.
Author's Notes: For lisek16, and sarkastic's Sarkney Ficathon. Thanks to eretria, for challenging thoughts, inspiring encouragement, and the correction of my Americanisms, to mciac, without whom this would be a big ball of suck, and to jainamsolo, for your eagle eyes. You ladies rock my world. And also to Maggie, who was a somewhat-unwitting accomplice.
--
He was, generally speaking, a man of no emotion. Emotions were a liability he couldn't afford. They meant hesitation instead of decisive action and rashness instead of patient deliberation. But all the same, he hated this place.
He waited until his throat burned before expelling the acrid fumes from his lungs. As a rule of thumb, he also was not a smoker. It was a frivolous indulgence that threatened the performance of the ultimate weapon that was his body. This place changed him in all kinds of unpleasant and dangerous ways. It reminded him of who he used to be.
Fog hovered in the air, shrouding everything like death, and thunder rolled in the distance, an echo of an earlier storm. He stepped up to the stone wall that lined the bridge and looked out into the blinding grayness that hid the Clarin River. It didn't matter that he couldn't see the line of shacks on the riverbank; it was the smell that he remembered. There was brine, of course, laced with oysters, diesel fuel, and the slow rot of souls left behind and forgotten by the rest of the world. It was the smell of the street, the smell of having nothing, the smell of abandonment. He seethed inside, and indulged in the rare burning of rage in his chest, enjoying it as much as he did the burn of the smoke in his lungs.
He is huddled inside a jacket that has been too small for the last five months. The embroidered school crest on the left breast is long since frayed and faded. He knows he's gotten taller, too, because the cuffs of his trousers are starting to abandon his ankles. He lights his last, slightly rumpled fag and feels the burn inside, pretending that it actually makes him warmer. He's here because this is where the money ran out, but it really could have been anywhere. It hasn't been difficult to invoke the pity of citizens of the town - he wonders which parent he should thank for his sad blue eyes - and it is just as simple to steal food. He has become a master of evasion, when necessary, but he still hasn't mastered the wind that comes off of the river. He tosses the butt carelessly into the alley and watches it smolder until a woman's slender shoe grinds it into the pavement. He follows it up, past ankle, calf, and knee before it disappears underneath a grey skirt. Her face, when he reaches it, wears a critical frown.
"You shouldn't smoke, Julian. Something like that will kill you." Her cultured voice is a shock after months around the Irish brogue. Presumptuous bitch. How dare she assume that she knows anything about him? How dare she know his name?
"And what if I don't care if I die?" he sneers. She tips her head back and gives a rich, throaty laugh, which startles him. He blinks as she turns to leave. She pauses at the end of the alley and glances over her shoulder with a lifted eyebrow that he will come to love and fear.
"Aren't you coming?"
He goes. He has nothing left to lose.
Sark closed his eyes for a full second, and then opened them. He crushed out the memory along with the cigarette and turned to meet his client.
He'd been almost surprised when he'd received the phone call. He hadn't forgotten that he owed Anatoly a favor for his assistance in extracting the gold bullion of his inheritance from the Covenant - an operation which had the delightful side effect of the rapid collapse of that entire organization. Anatoly had retired to his villa on Barbados shortly thereafter, and had become markedly less visible. Still, it was a worthwhile relationship to maintain, as Anatoly sustained connections with organizations in nearly all the former Soviet republics. As criminals go, he was a man of his word, but he could be as dangerous as he was valuable if you did not stay on his good side. Anatoly had called him on behalf of a potential client. Sark hadn't taken freelance jobs in what seemed like an age, but he did owe Anatoly. He just hoped it would be arranged quickly, so he could leave this damned place.
As he moved to the center of the bridge, a figure appeared out of the fog, tall and slender. Moving closer brought the silhouette into sharper and sharper relief. She was facing the white blankness that shrouded the river and appeared to him in profile, no doubt lost in her own contemplation. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, in what he recognized from years of observing her as determination, with an undercurrent of doubt.
A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. Sydney was requesting an assassination? Well, well, that was curious. Perhaps she had finally discovered the benefit of flexible morality, or perhaps she had finally broken. That would be a pity. He didn't bother to check the perimeter - the impenetrable fog made it impossible for either sniper or target to see more than a few feet in front of them. At any rate, she obviously wasn't here on orders from the CIA. Intrigued, he approached her.
"Sydney. This is a rather agreeable surprise." He leaned casually on the cold stone ledge and cocked his head slightly to one side. "To what do I owe this great pleasure?" It was a moment before she turned to look at him, eyes dark and empty.
"I have a job for you." Her voice was flat, with none of the impertinence that he had come to appreciate. "I'll pay $500,000 in advance, deposited in the account that you specify. I want the job completed within one month." Sark frowned. If Sydney was going to have someone killed in cold blood, it was a personal matter, he was sure. Sark mentally flipped through several possibilities.
A very long time ago, Sydney had accepted Sark's offer to kill Sloane, turning him over to certain death. At the time, she had done this to save Vaughn, a circumstance of which Sark himself had taken advantage, but he acknowledged in hindsight that it was the beginning of a slow downward spiral for Sydney.
He had learned that, during the years of her disappearance, Julia Thorne was indeed Sydney, and fully aware of her actions. She had become a harder, darker person out of necessity. She had needed to survive as Julia. He understood that need better than most.
That person seemed to disappear after her resurfacing. She had reverted back to her old, predictably self-righteous and condescending self, Julia seemingly dead forever. Still, there were moments when he had known that deep down she would never rid herself of the scars.
He knew that she had made good on a promise to kill the Covenant doctor who had tortured her, albeit unknowingly.
He had seen the surveillance feed of her beating a punching bag until her fists were a bloody pulp when, for the second time, former-Agent Vaughn had taken a wife that was not her.
He had watched her slay Sloane, under orders from the CIA. The old man had been put on the shoot-to-kill list for his final betrayal. Sydney had chosen to use a knife.
He had followed her as she hunted the hired gun who had killed her father, and had read the autopsy report cataloguing each brutality inflicted upon the man in revenge.
Sydney certainly seemed to have acquired a predilection for killing. But who was left to pay for her scars?
"Who is the mark?"
"Me."
He blinked. "Pardon?"
This time she turned to face him fully, her gaze drilling into him.
"I want you to kill me, Sark." He glanced out into the fog on the off chance that it would explain this. In the distance, another growling roll of thunder sounded ominously in response. When he looked back at her, she was still staring at him, daring him to question her.
"Sydney, I..."
"Please, Sark." Her tone was dismissive. "You can skip the shock and astonishment. I don't need your pity, and I don't want your opinion. I just want to hire you. This is a business transaction. It's as simple as that." When he remained silent, she spoke again. "Not here, or now. Don't worry, I'll run - it will be sporting. In fact, you can think of it as a game if you want. But in the end, I want you to do it, no questions asked."
Something stirred inside him that he tried to ignore. He pressed his lips together. Her offer shouldn't have given him this much pause. He would be paid; he would do a job. It was, indeed, simple.
Except nothing involving Sydney was ever simple.
"What would your mother say?"
"Worried she'll fire you, Sark?"
"I haven't worked for Irina since my incarceration by the CIA. You should know that. However, she would not be happy with this course of action."
"Don't change the subject. This isn't that complicated."
He eyed her critically. She was deluding herself if she thought this wasn't complicated. Then again, that wouldn't have been remarkably uncommon, for Sydney. He considered his reaction for a moment. Why should it be complicated? He had no emotional investment. At least, he wouldn't have if they hadn't been standing on this damned bridge, in this godforsaken place.
She snorted, is if reading his thoughts. "Unless you care too much."
He ignored the twist in his gut at how close she had struck to the mark. "Are there rules of engagement?"
"I don't want to know you're coming."
It was surreal in almost to the point of comedy to be standing in front of her, listening to her request her own death. In his experience, the business had always been just business, and wealth and power had come at the expense of such dangerous phenomena as intimacy and moral conviction. That was fine with him. Loyalty to an ideal or to a person was always so terribly inconvenient. He had often wondered at Sydney's lack of professional distance as she poured herself, heart and soul, into everything she did. He had wondered how much she would be able to take before she finally snapped, but he hadn't seen this coming. He wondered if he should have. "Fine. I'll do this, but only if you answer one question."
"Depends on the question."
"Why here?" He gestured to the bridge and to the fog beyond. "Why this place?" She smiled ever so slightly, and it was chilling.
"Because I thought you would understand."
--
And so the hunt began.
He hunted her in Bangkok. He sat on the roof of the Indra Regent Hotel with a sniper rifle for two hours, watching her browse the street vendors of the Pratunam Market while waiting for a brush pass from another CIA operative. After the pass, she turned and looked directly at him. He watched her shake her green-tinged head at him through the rifle's sight, and knew that the gun would never do. He needed to get closer.
He wondered how she knew.
He pursued her in Venice. The narrow, twisting streets made tracking her difficult but evasion of her notice easy. She criss-crossed and doubled back on her path, darting across small footbridges and around corners for a solid hour before ducking into an inconspicuous, dimly-lit restaurant, with little besides a mostly steamed-up window to distinguish it from the rest of the damp wall. He watched her settle into a dark corner booth with a clear line of sight to the entrance, and read her lips which ordered the pesci del giorno in flawless Italian. Feigning drunkenness, he stumbled through the back entrance, presumably in search of a restroom. During the ensuing argument with the kitchen staff, no one saw him pull the small vial from his pocket, and no one witnessed him empty it onto the fish. Using the hidden camera feed he had planted as he left, he watched her grainy form pick at the dinner, first the broccoli, then the potato, but the fish she left untouched.
He wondered if he was trying hard enough.
He stalked her in Caracas. He blindsided her on the Avenida Urdaneta and pulled her into an alley. The sun was overwhelmingly brilliant in the street, but it could not penetrate the shadows of the narrow space. The overwhelming heat, however, had no trouble at all in filling every crevice with its thick viscosity. If he failed to suffocate her, surely the oppressive air would do the job for them both. His hands slid from her neck, slick with sweat. She twisted in his grip and kneed him in the groin with her lips inches from his face.
He wondered if this was all an elaborate play, and her endgame, his embarrassment.
He was tiring of their dance. He was ready to finish it.
--
He found her in a warehouse outside Paris. He had brought a knife that night.
They fought as if each punch were a greeting, each crack of bone or strain of muscle a pleasantry. He pinned her against the wall with his body, her arms twisted in the jacket she wore and secured behind her head by his hand.
She had fought him as if she wanted freedom, as if she wanted her life back, but having been pinned by him, she suddenly became still. She relaxed into his grip, giving herself up to death, to him. Tendrils that had pulled loose from her ponytail hung limp with sweat around her half-lidded eyes, and her breath came in short puffs from her slightly opened mouth. A slow burn returned in the pit of his stomach, as he regarded her in his arms. He ignored it and drew the knife from its concealed sheath, touching the edge of the blade to her offered throat. The burn grew, and he stopped the knife, as a vision of the past appeared in his mind's eye.
She is the only thing he thinks he's ever loved.
"Do it!" she demands. He turns the knife in his grip, and sets his jaw. When she tests him, he thinks she is the one that he hates the most.
Irina's eyes are dark, and she offers him the inside of her arm.
He is paralyzed. There are many things he can do now. Inflicting pain doesn't bother him. It can't bother him, if he wants to eat. Finally, he throws the knife at her feet. He turns to face the wall.
"There is no love, Julian." He doesn't want to look at her.
"I hate you." He is sure to make use of his newly-deep voice.
"There is no hate. Hate is weakness." She picks up the knife and walks over to take his right arm. "We do not hate." He watches a streak of red appear on his white skin. "We do not love." A second streak appears. "We simply do what is necessary."
"Sark!" Sydney's angry cry pulled him back to the present. "What the hell are you waiting for? Do it!"
He steeled himself. He had been trained for this. He applied pressure to the blade and it ripped her skin; a line of oozing crimson appeared. But the blade would go no further. He closed his eyes and pulled her arms tighter behind her head. He gritted his teeth in rage at himself, but turned it on her.
"I won't take your blame for this, Sydney." He laughed a tight, short laugh that could have been at her expense. "You can't bring yourself to end it for yourself, can you? So you hired me to do what you couldn't. Well, I won't let you die believing that it was I who did this to you."
"Why do you care?"
He hesitated for the barest fraction of a second. "I don't." Inwardly, he winced. The answer shouldn't have taken that long and she knew it.
"Oh, I see." She sneered at him and bucked in his grip. "Growing a conscience, Sark? Can't stand the thought of losing your worthy adversary? Face it, Sark: you want me alive? no, you need me alive. You're trying to rescue me! You're-"
He interrupted her baiting by slamming his body against hers. Her neck snapped back and she groaned, the sound reverberating through him. Her heart pounded against his ribcage as he pressed the flat of the knife more firmly against her exposed neck. "Don't flatter yourself," he snarled. "You can't decide if you want to be rescued to life or to death, so you want me to decide for you. Well, I won't be your savior from this life, Sydney."
She was suddenly very quiet, and her head lolled forward, nearly resting against his chin. "I want to die," she whispered.
"If you wanted this, Sydney, you'd be dead by now."
She lifted her head, but would not meet his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak several times, but could not seem to find the words. He watched her exasperation and was struck by her resemblance to her mother: the frustrated pinch of her eyebrows, the muscled hardness of her body under the silky softness of her skin, the drastic totality of her decision, the uncanny ability to drive him insane. The fiery twist she sent coursing through his body was different.
"Don't do this to me..." She was whimpering now. "I paid you. You need to do this." She twisted in his arms as she cried. "I trusted you."
At that, the smoldering knot in his gut burst into a raging flame. He knew she had trusted him, and he had allowed it. Acknowledging that fact was admitting that she had seen something in him of what he used to be, and he wouldn't accept that that person still existed. He couldn't accept it. But then she just came out and said it like that, and made it impossible to deny. He met her eyes through a red haze of some kind of passion, though whether it was closer to love or to hate, he would not allow himself to consider.
"Well, that was your first mistake," he hissed, gathering up the threads of his control. Her breath still came in puffs, though now more uneven, from her parted lips. Something surged inside him, and with a delicacy that belied the knife still in his hand and the rage still in his gut, he bent his head, caught her lips in a kiss, and stopped her breath with his mouth.
When he released her, she collapsed to the floor at his feet. Without looking at her, he turned to leave. Her harsh whisper reached him at the door.
"I hate you."
He paused, then, and glanced at her over his shoulder. He sighed, and for the first time in recent memory, gave a sign of his weariness to another human being.
"It would be so much simpler if that were true."
He left her there, lying in fetal position and bleeding from the neck.
--
Two years later, Sydney had gone missing in action from the Los Angeles office of the CIA. His LA asset reported the news that had become commonplace. The CIA would wait to deploy a search team or even begin collecting related intelligence until she had been gone for two weeks. It had happened often enough in recent months that they finally got the message: Sydney did not want to be found. Besides, she had always returned, sooner or later.
It was thundering in the distance, but the storm that the rumbles had heralded was long gone, and the clouds were beginning to break. Sark shed his suit coat as the setting sun painted the late afternoon sky a brilliant, fiery red. The misty curtain of seemingly ever-present fog slowly dissolved into the air, and she appeared in the distance just as she had the first time they had stood on this bridge.
She faced the river standing tall, her hands resting on the cool stone wall. He came to stand behind her as if trying to follow her line of sight into the crimson sky. His skin was clammy from the moisture in the air, but he could feel the warmth of her back fill the air between them.
She did not acknowledge his presence, but she did breathe a deep sigh. He did not touch her, and he did not speak. He was not here for her, really. He never stopped to think why it was, exactly, that he always came back.
He was, after all, a man of no emotion.
Generally speaking.
--
You will hear thunder and remember meAnd think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the color of hard crimson
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.
- Anna Akhmatova, 1961