Title: Skeletons in the closet
Summary: Sydney faces her past at SD-6.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Alias related, only the characters you don't know.
Spoiler: 3:17 'The frame' and before, AU after that.
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Thanks to everyone who's reviewed my story to let me know people are still interested in it. Also there isn't a set pairing right now, but there may be in the end.
Chapter Twelve
When Sydney collapsed onto her bed Elliot looked over to her with tears in her eyes. "Are you okay?" Sydney looked up at her and found her drying her tears.
"I'm fine, Lauren told me a few home truths that's all. What about you?" Elliot looked at her hands as she answered.
"She just reminded me of a few…Julia."
Sydney froze at her comment and Elliot shook her head. "You know I'd convinced myself it really wasn't you. You weren't Julia Thorne you just looked like her, but it was you…everything that happened was you."
"I have no memory of being Julia Thorne. Whatever I did to you…"
"What?" She interrupted. "It doesn't count anymore because you don't remember what you did? The pain I still feel inside of me doesn't matter anymore?" She stared blankly at the ceiling. "You were a double agent against the CIA, you were everything you hated and yet you were in full control, they never brain washed you, you just snapped."
"Tell me." Sydney choked out through tears. "What did I do to you?"
Elliot stared past her and looked at the wall as she told her.
Elliot snuck behind the guards at the Covenant facility she was in and knocked them out from behind. Stealing a uniform she placed a key card in a nearby elevator and cursed, as it wouldn't open. "C'mon, c'mon." She muttered and froze as she heard someone clear their throat behind her.
She looked around to find a blonde standing behind her with a gun on clear display in a holster. "Here, let me." She leant forward and swiped her card in the elevator.
"Thanks." Elliot mumbled and got in the elevator. The blonde followed. When her cell phone rang Elliot knew it had to be important.
"Elliot, they know you're in there. Get out now."
"Don't worry the matter's taken care off." She hung up and smiled at the blonde.
"Excuse me, do I know you?" She recognised the attractive blonde from somewhere. The blonde looked at her and leant in closer.
"Is that a line or are you being serious?"
"Syd?" She asked cautiously. The woman's eyes enlarged at the mention of 'Syd' and she pulled out her gun, ramming it into her side and pinning her to the ground.
"I do recognise you…Elle…" A small smile spread on her face. "You betray me, you lied to me and you used me." She growled. "You're going to regret that painfully."
When the elevator door opened the security guards waiting for the intruder found Miss Thorne in it with a young woman lying unconscious on the floor. "Try to do your jobs gentlemen. Take her to my car. Now."
When Elliot woke up she found the blonde watching her. "It's been a long time Elliot." She smiled as Elliot rose to her feet and went for the gun that had been hidden under her shirt. Holding it in her hand she aimed it at the CIA agent.
"Looking for something?" She teased.
"Why are you working for the Covenant?" Elliot asked confused at how the virtuous Sydney could have been turned.
"Because I'm loyal to their cause. My associated told me everything; I'm the chosen one. I'll deliver everything that Rhambaldi worked for; my associates are the only people in my life who have wanted me...just so you know, you're only being told this because you'll be dead soon, but don't worry it wont be too soon."
Julia hadn't lied on prolonging her death. Two weeks later Elliot still lay in the basement of a large house. Locked in a room with two small beds and nothing more. She lay battered and bruised with dry blood coating her lip. Julia had physically tortured her, starved her and played endless mind games. She'd let her escape twice, but it was always so she could hunt her down in the house and have the pleasure of destroying her optimism all over again.
Elliot had broken the last time she had escaped. She'd passed up two other escape opportunities since; even if they were genuine she had no spirit left in her to tell her to run escape. She was exhausted and in pain, and thankfully had been fed that morning, so she lay on the small bed that had become her haven and prayed that she could die that day.
When night fell she heard Julia approach and sat in the corner of the bed huddled in a ball. She hated looking at the woman who had so much power over her, the woman who looked so much like Sydney and acted as cold as stone.
She slammed the door shut and slumped onto the bed. "She's a fucking whore." She cried and Elliot realised she was in tears. "Going with him." Elliot uncurled herself and sat up watching her carefully.
"She'll say she has to because it's her mission, but I know she wants him more. I've been in his fan club. He's nothing compared to me. I could kill him in an instant before he even knew I was there." She turned to Elliot and a feral grin spread on her lips. "Or I could teach her a lesson."
Elliot cowered at the look in her eyes and screamed as Julia advanced on her and crushed her lips against her own. The forced kiss renewed a fire deep inside Elliot. The woman wasn't Sydney, she was cold and heartless and evil. Sydney was nothing like her.
Elliot pushed her away and scrambled to the door. She groaned as she found it locked and Julia grabbed her arm and flung her backwards onto the floor. Pinning her down she tried to kiss her again but Elliot bit into her tongue and Julia reeled back in pain. Elliot took her chance and grabbed the keys from inside Julia's pocket and then after slamming her head off the floor she ran to the door and unlocked it.
Once she was out of the room she locked it and remembered her previous escape attempts. She remembered all of the wrong turns she had taken and all of the right ones and was out of the house and running through a nearby forest in minutes. She ran blindly in the dark through the thick undergrowth and after an hour of running she stopped in exhaustion.
The adrenaline had run out and the pain in her ribs and legs increased ten fold. She stumbled through the forest for another two hours until she came to the edge of a hill and found a road at the bottom. Trying to go down it she slipped and slide down the hill, banging off rocks and trailing through the dirt.
She lay in the ditch that she fell in and slipped unconscious. She was an agent and she had stamina but the pain of two weeks of torture had caught up with her and she couldn't force herself to open her eyes, so she lay there for half an hour until a truck stopped near her and two men jumped out to rush to her side.
"My name is…Elliot Gable. I need to use a phone…" The two men helped her to her feet and carried her to the truck where one of them let her use his cell phone.
"This is officer 2300749, calling for connection. Confirmation: night owl." She spoke to the operator and she was directed to the CIA. "I don't know where I am. I've been abducted for the past two weeks; maybe more I'm not sure." She calmly listened to the CIA operative on the other end and found out from the truckers where she was. Within hours she was in a CIA safe house waiting for a contact.
When Zachary Minear walked through the door she sighed and hugged him. "I thought I'd die. I'd given up even living…" She sobbed onto his shoulder and a fresh wave of tears hit her. "The woman who kidnapped me she looked like…like Syd."
He shook his head. "I contacted Dixon, he's a CIA director now. Sydney couldn't have done it. She became a CIA agent and she was a double. She found out all about SD-6 a couple of weeks after she turned us in." Elliot broke down crying again and kicked the nearby coffee table.
"I knew it wasn't her. The woman she was…soulless. Syd's a CIA agent?" She beamed and hugged him. "She'll understand why we hid our status from her. We can all be together again…what?"
Zac looked anywhere but at his partner and best friend. "She died Elle. In a house fire. Her housemate was killed and cloned and she killed Syd and burned the house down. She's…she's gone…"
"No…no…NO!" She screamed and slumped to the floor. Of all the pain and torture she had endured Sydney's death was the greatest thing that hurt her. "She has to be alive."
"Jack looked, there's no trace of her. He's still looking but it's in vain. She's gone Elle. Her ashes were spread in the ocean. Her handler threw them out, they were…close."
Elliot shook her head and pounded the floor with her fist. "That was almost a year ago now. He's Lauren's fiancé now." Elliot looked up to him and tears of pain were drowning her eyes.
"She invited us to the wedding." She sobbed. "I have to go and watch the man who got Sydney marry my ex girlfriend? Great." Zac held her in his arms as she cried and let everything out. After that night Sydney was never mentioned again.
Sydney sat in silence as Elliot finished explaining what had happened. "So it was you Sydney. You hurt me and beat me and if I hadn't of escaped that night you would have…"
Tears flooded Syd's eyes as she realised that if what Lauren had said was true then she was in full control and knew what she was doing. "Lauren said I was completely free as Julia. I think I just snapped. Everything got to me all at once and I was offered this perfect way out of being the goody two shoes agent who had to play by the rules…I am so sorry Elle…"
Elliot pulled away from her and sat curled up in the far corner of the bed. The room held many memories for her and that was why Lauren had put her with Sydney inside it. As she closed her eyes she could hear her screams of mercy echo from the walls. "You were Sydney Bristow. Now all you'll ever be is Julia Thorne." She turned her back to her and allowed her tears to roll down her cheeks, leaving Sydney to sit in silence, contemplating what she'd done.
"You're right." She muttered. "I did everything as Julia Thorne and knew what I was doing. I didn't care again until I found out about the box and what the Covenant wanted me to do…now they can't do it."
She walked to the door and pounded on it. "Lauren! Danny! I want to talk." She looked back at Elliot once and the hatred in her glare only urged her on. "I want to be Julia again."