Chapter 14: The 'Bill Of Challenge' To 'Playing The Prize'

Bill of Challenge - a formal announcement that an English student is ready to "Play" for his "Prize".

Playing the Prize - the testing of a student for advancement in the English schools of Defence, when the student decides they are ready to move to the next level.

Back in her kitchen, Sydney was still mulling over the issue of she and Sark. It had gone one o'clock in the morning and she was still there, with Vaughn now sleeping soundly on the sofa in the next room.

She hadn't done with her thoughts and emotions about Sark yet, or else they hadn't done with her; either way it had been a long night and it still wasn't through.

She looked down at the countertop before her, on it was a surprisingly small heap of coffee beans. She'd answered herself more bravely than she thought she could. And they hadn't been easy questions either.

Well, except for when she'd hit two seconds where she could take no more and had crapped out with, so, Sydney Bristow, what is your favourite colour? - Pink!

She counted the beans, seven of them. All representing hardball issues and queries connected with Sark that she'd tried to duck and had then had hauled herself up on, forcing herself to address them. Without even thinking about it she knew she'd always keep them tucked away in a drawer somewhere, and that whenever she came across them, even if years from now, she'd remember this night. The night when she had changed herself, admittedly prompted by a man who regularly pointed guns at her, but she had changed.

The first 'hardball' was one she had already gone over fully in her mind, the one where she'd tried to put a portion of the blame on to Sark for the fact that she'd fucked up part of her life. Implying they'd fucked it up, when really she had. The others had occurred after, but were pretty much on the same theme, when she'd been trying to back-slide and deny her own culpability in how things had turned out, or deny how she truly felt.

Sydney had to admit it, she may have been brave, but she was also capable of being a stubborn, childish, self-deceiving, back-sliding, heel-digging little drag-ass.

Wow, do I ever suck!

She absently pushed a bean about with her finger.

She was composed now, the sore puffiness and scarlet blotches caused by her sobbing had faded. She was able to go back over her thoughts without breaking down. And she was going to go back over her thoughts, she was going to do it before she slept, she was determined to. She wanted to cement her thoughts into place so she couldn't disown them in the morning. But also – she bit her lip in a foolish grin – she'd spent so long denying any feelings for Sark at all, that it was fun now to just be able to think about him.

She looked down at the particular bean she was sliding about with her forefinger and laughed to herself. Now, was this the bean where she'd tried to tell herself that she'd never lead Sark on, that her falling for him was all his fault for being so damn persistent? Or was it the one where she'd denied to herself that she'd been actually physically attracted to him at all, but had only ever admired him as a human being?

Sydney bit her lip to stop herself from blurting out with laugher at how absurd that last one had been, and then covered her mouth when she failed so that the noise wouldn't wake Vaughn.

At the thought of Vaughn, she was jumped by guilt.

Vaughn. Sleeping there. Trusting. Just in the next room. Yeah, well, fuck it. She could and no doubt would go back to tortured guilt tomorrow, but tonight she was going to take a rest from martyrdom and spend some time with Sark, even if it was only in her memories. After an age of agonised self-denial, she'd earned the break.

Where would she start? She pushed the bean with her finger, might as well make this the 'I never lead Sark on bean' after all she giggled, and start from there.

Sydney laughed at herself over how ridiculous she'd been earlier: I never lead Sark on! Yeah, right, sure I didn't.Oh please, I had the slavering hots for him from the start! In fact, where was the start? It was right from the very moment she'd first seen him spank the ass off the K-Directorate criminal organisation in a desolate factory in Moscow. She'd been hanging from a harness outside – snooping – when she'd seen a blond boy in financial negotiation for a Rambaldi artefact. He'd been alone, representing The Man against the head of K-Directorate, his lieutenants and bodyguard. The deal had suddenly gone pear-shaped and for a second or so she had thought the blond boy was a dead man.

Hanging there, she'd known a moment of absolute panic.

Something in her had frozen up, horrified, wanting to shriek out and stop them – as even then in the first few seconds, before she'd even seen him properly, she felt some connection with him. And then she realised she didn't have to worry about him, ever, because with one imperious arch of an eyebrow he'd motioned the bodyguard to promptly shoot his own boss, leaving Sark to finish the deal with the man whom he summarily appointed as the next head of K-Directorate.

Hanging from the harness in the alleyway outside, Sydney had watched a charismatic, fearless, beautiful young man be totally ahead of the game. She'd been instantly grabbed by the crotch and hadn't been let go.

She leant forward resting her head on the counter top, helpless with silent laughter at her own summary of events. Grabbed by the crotch! Oh dear God, it was so wonderful just to be able to admit it! Even if it was only to herself.

When was the next time she'd seen him? Easy! That time they'd beat the crap out of each other with latajangs! It had been in broad daylight this time, and she'd seen him full on. He'd been so arresting she'd not been able to stop herself from staring! A beautiful, blond, blue-eyed, prince of espionage.

The thing was, that although she'd been in heavy disguise – she was wearing a veil dammit – she had just known that he knew it was her! She had no idea even now of how he'd known, but she knew he had. As he'd baited her to do battle to prove that she was who she claimed, it was the faintly smirking, cocky way he'd come at her, relishing the prospect of combat with her.

He'd been playing with her – the grinning devil!

She was breathless at the memory.

It had been wonderful! The sheer unbridled physicality of just going straight flat at each other! Each knowing the other was good enough not to get hurt! Either of them could have won, but she had. He'd crashed flat on his back and had lain there looking up at her as she looked down at him, both of them heaving for breath. The look on his face! His gaze had been a private joke, a hot, laughing, unspoken challenge: Get down here and do me. You know you want to!

Dixon, S-D6 and the CIA had promptly crashed the ball. Sark had escaped of course, despite being handcuffed to a wrought iron gate – no shit, really? Yes, he'd managed to outwit an entire Russian mob organisation, but a pair of handcuffs? – yeah, that was really going to stop him!

And after that? Sydney caught her breath. After that was when she'd encountered him in a Paris nightclub, with her posing as a vampish cabaret singer.

Her mission objective had been to get a recording of Alexander Khasineau's heartbeat, the Deputy of The man's organisation. Alexander Khasineau? He should have been renamed Alexander Khasin-Who , because instead of properly concentrating on him she'd taken the opportunity to - and there was no other phrase for it, and why should she need one anyway in the privacy of her own mind? - to feel up Sark! She bit her lip in glee, loving the memory of it. And at the time she had been in such full-on vamp-drag that she wasn't sure he'd actually recognised her. The possibility of him not knowing who she was had given her an enormous thrill, she'd felt freed of her own identity and thus released to do whatever she wanted. Even recalling it now, she swore she could still feel the tingle in her fingers from the memory of – under cover of her vamp routine - having wilfully trailed them across his chest, up along his neck, over his face and into his hair.

She had felt an incredible sense of power as she saw that she had him so turned on.

After that had come the incident that had showed them all just how smart he really was – his brilliant out-manoeuvring of Sloane's trick with the adulterated wine. Sloane had put a tracer on Sark via a radio-active iodide in wine the two men had drunk, which had then filtered into Sark's bloodstream, 'marking' him. Sark had not only figured that out, but figured out how to get round it: blood transfusion.

And then he'd gone and blown it all, he'd tortured Will.

Sydney got a grip on herself. Okay, she'd been through this earlier tonight. Time to go through it again, even if only to fix it in her head. Earlier, she had earned another bean by trying to use what Sark had done to Will as an excuse to justify the way she had subsequently treated Sark.

Well that was bullshit.

Sark and Will were nothing to do with she and Sark. And besides, Will and her dad had deliberately posed Will as a player, and players took the lumps. Dad had done it for his own advantageous reasons, and Will had done it because … because Will had wanted to impress her.

Sydney recalled an uncomfortable instance earlier in her self-questioning, where she'd been honest to herself straight off about Will's feelings for her and so didn't have cause to have eight beans on the counter instead of seven. Will may have started seeing Francie, but he was attracted to she, Sydney, and Sydney knew it. The knowledge of his attraction made her uncomfortable, but it wasn't something she had to deal with upfront often, so she usually ignored it, instead buying into their mutually deceiving game of: Hey, isn't it great? We're a guy and a gal who are just friends and neither of us wants to have sex with the other!

What a crock!

She was astonished at just how often guys pulled that play: I'm your friend, I'm not trying to get into your panties, no really! Usually with a woman they knew they had no chance with, and so angling the friendship thing was the best they could hope for. Well, guess what, the chick always knew, even if she didn't say.

Will was using their friendship as a prop to keep the door open in the hope of something else, and she was letting him do it because his want for her made him easy, unchallenging company.

She suspected that was another reason why she was so attracted to Sark. He didn't play that 'just friends' game. He may have been full of guile, but when it came to acknowledging his own nefarious aims she suspected he didn't have an ounce of self-deception in him.

Sydney knew that when Sark was physically attracted to a woman, he let her know. Unlike Will and countless other guys who feared to make themselves plain, Sark wasn't scared of rejection. It wasn't that he never expected to get it – she was living proof that he did - but that he would not let the fear of it see him waste a lifetime in hanging back. In his own way Sark went in for frank pursuit. He didn't manoeuvre women into relationships under the guise of 'friendship'. From her own experience she knew that when he was attracted to a woman Sark may not have broadcast it to the world but he made sure the woman concerned certainly knew, and he gave her the choice to say 'yes' or 'no'. Sydney knew for a fact that he took 'no' to mean no.

She thought back to the subject of Will.

Well, no-one could really blame Sark for what had happened to Will.

If Will had set himself up as a player, then nobody could complain when Sark had treated him like one. After all, torture and interrogation were part of the package, they all expected to get it and they all knew that both sides dealt it out. S-D6 had termed it 'having a talk in the conversation room' whilst in the CIA it was called Going To Camp Harris.

Will hadn't been the reason why Sark deserved the way she had treated him, she hadn't behaved toward Sark like a cold High School Bitch because he'd 'deserved it' in any case. She knew she'd treated him like that because she'd been an emotional coward who was too scared not to.

She wanted justification for how she'd treated Sark in how he'd treated Will? She knew she couldn't even find it in how he'd treated her! What were the worse things he'd ever really done to her? That time in Siberia when he'd shot the ice out from under her, submerging her in lethally cold depths, was an accident. If she hadn't already immobilised him by slamming him in the leg with an ice-pick – causing his finger to jerk on the trigger in the first place – then he probably would have tried to rescue her!

She thought back. What else was there? Yep, that time with the acid shower in Paldiski. Oh please, she knew he was never going to let it eat at her skin. Well, she'd thought he wasn't going to. And when he'd had her scrubbed down naked afterwards? Looking back on it, he'd had to, to make damn sure not a drop of acid had gotten on her and incrementally damaged her.

There was only one thing he'd personally done to her that she thought was right next door to unforgivable. That thing no-one else knew about. She swallowed hard, unwilling to face up to it and look it over in her mind, it had been so humiliating.

Oh, come on, you don't want another bean over a little thing like that do you?

She blurted it out to herself: that damned geisha thing!

Even now she burned red-faced at the memory. How could he have said those things to her!

At the start of the Tokyo mission to take down Sloane he'd wished her luck and meant it. She, as usual, had gotten snippy, flatly insulting him with how she didn't need his luck. Thinking back on it, maybe she'd deserved what he had said later.

After she'd put Sloane out with a hypo shot and then screamed for an 'ambulance', Sark had arrived as they waited for it to come. They'd had a few minutes and had exchanged words. It would have looked strange if they had not. After all, they were supposed to be two concerned civilians caught up in the tragedy of a stricken man.

He had looked at her as she towered above all the other – genuine - geishas. She and they were dressed alike but next to their diminutive frames she'd stood out like a strapping race-horse amongst delicate fauns. She'd known it would be a dumb disguise, but no, the CIA had insisted! She and Sark had held a hissed conversation out of the corners of their mouths. She fully recalled it. Typically he had been flirtatious and charming and she curt and prim.

"Sydney, can't you at least pretend to be shorter?"

"Shut up. I don't converse with assassins."

"No, you just have a mother who is one, a father who thinks like one, and although you wouldn't deign to have conversations with us, you're quite happy to choose us as lovers." She'd given a guilty, questioning start, he didn't know, he - "Noah Hicks?" he'd clarified, "Mr. Snowman? Remember him? Or have there been so many of us bad-boys that you've simply lost track? For such a nice girl, I hear you were more than happy to leap into the sack with Frosty."

"I didn't know!"

"Oh that's what all you Professional Virgins say."

Professional virgin? "Any more out of you Mister and I swear to God, I'll whack you with the left-overs from Sloane's little shot!"

"Oh look Sydney, that man over there's staring at you. Maybe he thinks you're too tall for a geisha? Why don't you crouch?"

"Stop trying to make me look ridiculous!"

"I don't need to try. I leave that to the CIA." Sark had turned to her, looking her fully up and down and explaining with a gentle shake of his head, "Sydney, you look like a line backer in clown-face."

She'd nearly decked him on the spot. Yeah, some geisha she'd make! Line backer? Okay, so she worked out, she had to, but … line backer?

She sat in the kitchen, retrospectively enjoying her anger at him, enjoying it because she knew she didn't really mean it: that smirking blond bastard!

Anything else that had happened, Vaughn being exposed to that virus, all the ambushes and shoot-outs Sark had inflicted upon her, all the spying stuff? That was just work. But that geisha comment, that had been pure gratuitous insult!

Sitting in the kitchen, she growled to herselfthat she didn't care for him,thatit was just a sex thing. Yeah, right. How very convenient she should tell herself that, like it wasn't the very issue of another one of her beans!

Yeah, sure I don't care! She thought. Sydney, quit lying to yourself!

Like she hadn't been sick with worry for him that time in the Russian factory. That she hadn't been nauseous with fear when Sloane had captured him shortly after the latajang fight, picturing Sark being subjected to all manner of horrifying tortures in 'the conversation room' when in fact the two men had been sharing a bottle of wine. And when Sloane did have Sark in 'the conversation room' during Sark's time at S-D6, threatening him with torture after Sloane's failed mission in Kashmir? When Sydney had heard about that she'd frozen until she realised that Sark was safe – that he'd talked his way out of it. That, and hadn't she just been sobbing her heart out in the kitchen earlier on?

Yeah, sure I don't care! I don't care like Snow White isn't a virgin!

Which lead to another of her hardballs.

That it wasn't even a sex thing, she didn't have a sex thing for Sark!

Oh right, she had really been channelling her Inner Princess on that one: I just admired his professionalism, she had smugly told herself, and wanted to be friends.

That was so ridiculous! Sydney's mobile face was creased with silent laughter, head propped in her hands, chest heaving with unvoiced giggles. Yeah, sure she wasn't panting after him! Be still, be still, my beating crotch! She felt drunk, although she hadn't even had any alcohol.

FAPSE headquarters anyone? Hot even in his ludicrous Russian guard's uniform?

She'd been so stunned to see him in FAPSE that she'd been too shocked to get her High School Bitch act fully into place. He had attempted to make her a 'comprehensive offer'; in response she'd been almost witty for once saying that he was cute, but she'd pass.

She'd nearly blotted her copy book over that one when she'd gotten back to L.A., nearly shown up what she really felt. Over gossip with Vaughn she'd let him know about Sark's offer, barely suppressing her excitement while telling him that Sark reminded her of the good-looking guy in high school who knows how cute he is and won't take no for an answer. Vaughn hadn't picked up on the inference. Good job she hadn't told Will, with his journalist's mind he'd have been all over it.

Oooh – that time Sloane had said 'brief him' when she'd first seen Sark at S-D6 and she'd nearly giggled!

That time in the Gendarme car on their Paris op! Okay, he'd been trapped in that ridiculous outfit with its absurd cloak … She laughed. Poor Sark! God he got stuck with some lousy outfits! With her photographic memory she could remember every inch and angle of his face and she could fully recall his appearance in the Gendarme's uniform he'd been forced into as a cover. But as he'd floored the accelerator that day and they'd escaped with the Echelon unit, silly-looking Gendarme's outfit or not, she'd taken one look at his intent, knowing face crouched over the steering-wheel and all she could think was that she was in a fast car with Sark, that they could go anywhere for the afternoon, and that disguised as a policeman he would have his very own pair of handcuffs on him!

Oh God, when she'd driven him off the road when he was on his way to his first day at the S-D6 office. She hadn't even known what she was going to say when she forced him over. She'd just seen his golden hair ahead of her and had roared to catch up, with no idea of what she'd do when she did. Boy, she'd really blown that one. It had been the ideal opportunity: they were out of the office, away from all eyes, removed from any roles they may have felt obliged to play, and they'd had the whole day ahead of them. He'd flirted with her, and what had she done? Yep, instantly skittered back behind her Bitch Princess routine, even though there was no-one there to see it.

Dear God, he'd looked so hot standing there. Bespoke black suit, blue shirt, blue tie, Oakleys on. Easy, smiling, confident. She swallowed at the memory.

Sitting in the kitchen she was suddenly convinced that beneath the glib surface charm he had displayed, he had actually cared for her then whether he knew it or not. She was suddenly sure that his veneer of bullet-proof charm had not been to disguise the fact that he did not care, but to hide the fact that he did. It was a mirrored reflective barrier, at once both camouflage and a Kevlar shell designed to stop anyone from getting to the real him beneath.

What was she going to do if she ever saw him again?

That had been another of her dodge-ball issues. She had tried to tell herself that she didn't want to see him again, which was complete crap - she did want to see him again, she just didn't know what she'd do when it happened.

Even the phrase 'if she ever saw him again' had been an evasion. They were bound to meet again. They were each the best field agent their respective sides had. Her side? The Free World, America and the CIA. His side? Mom, Sloane and anyone with the money. When each side wanted something badly, they tended to be the ones they sent in to get it. When both sides badly wanted the same thing at the same time? Odds were that Sark and Sydney would be flung into the mixer together. Again.

Meeting him wasn't the problem. The fact that there was little chance of any contact that didn't involve aiming guns at each other's heads was the problem. It wasn't exactly a set of circumstances that lent itself to casually inviting each other out for coffee. Well, whatever she did or said next time their paths crossed, at least she was determined not to allow herself to run and hide behind her adopted cold hard bitch routine as she had in the past. Even if people regarded her with misgivings afterwards she would not let Sark or herself down again by pretending she didn't care. She might not ever be able to tell him she did care, but she wasn't going to stand there and actively pretend that she didn't.

As she'd gone over her thoughts again, she'd moved the beans around the countertop, putting them in a nice, neat row. One bean was left, representing the toughest issue of all. Was she in love with Sark, or was it just a fascination with what she knew she shouldn't have? Who held her by the heart, Sark or Vaughn? The glittering, playful enemy, a man whom she sensed was at some level at war with his own emotions, or the man who was loving, and tried to be a solid prop?

Who did she most want? If she loved either of them, which one was it? She truly did not know.

She wasn't being evasive, she just couldn't answer. It was too big a question. There were too many sides to it. If she loved Sark, could they ever be together anyway? If she didn't love Vaughn, should they still be together in spite of the fact, just because he loved her?

Vaughn did love her, she knew that. Well, he loved his idea of her: Miss Perfect Princess. She thought back on all the things he'd done for her. He'd gone up against the Government's Rambaldi obsessives to spring her from them, putting his life and his personal freedom on the line and all for her. But behind it all, she knew he was fundamentally weaker than she. Not a bad man, just a weak one. Was it enough to be with someone just because they earnestly loved you, even if you might not love them?

She supposed Vaughn had always been looking for something to give himself form – did he now think he'd found it in her? Had he always been seeking some template he could base himself upon? Even coming in to the CIA had been an effort to emulate his dead father, rather than an effort to be himself. Was there any 'real' Vaughn? Was he just a collage of different facets which he highlighted as and when appropriate?

Just like herself in fact?

Was that another reason why she felt so pulled to Sark, that unlike Vaughn, Dad, Dixon – everyone actually – he didn't have this Miss Perfect Princess image of her that she had to live up to? It was as though everyone else seemed to need her to be perfect, so they wouldn't have to be.

Sydney knew that Sark could be coldly calculating, he was capable of great ruthlessness and an almost heartless disengagement from others; but she sensed he was also one of the most bluntly honest people she had ever met. Sark looked life flat in its ugly face and laughed straight at it; she knew he could accept the worst about her. What had she tried to keep hidden about herself anyway - her wild streak, her reckless abandon? Those things wouldn't bother Sark. He lived life full-on, he wouldn't be shocked that someone else might want to.

Who could she talk to? She had her heart and mind preoccupied with internationally wanted assassin! Who really knew her well enough to understand, or forgive, or just accept? Will? No such luck. Even if he could truly give unbiased advice regarding her attraction for another man, then the fact that the man was Sark - Will's much hated Cocky British Sonofabitch – would see him lie to her.

Francie? Maybe, a while back, but not now. Francie had grown somehow distant. Not surprising really, had she ever really let Francie know her? And not just Francie either; now that she really needed someone, was there really anyone who knew her? Probably not, but whose fault was that? After all, how had she ever let anyone really know her when she'd spent so much of her life hiding behind her greatest alias of all: The Perfect Miss Sydney Bristow?

Suddenly exhausted, she knew she could think no more and she straightened up from the kitchen counter. She wasn't sure quite who she really was now, not after tonight, but that was better than what she had been before, someone who thought she knew herself when she didn't.

She looked down at the stray bean on the countertop. She put it in her pocket and bagged up the others and put them away in a drawer as keepsakes. The one in her pocket was unfinished business.

When she went through to the other room she saw Vaughn fast asleep, head lying at a vulnerable angle against a cushion, utterly defenceless against the future.

She didn't wake him, but instead brought another blanket from the bedroom and lay herself down on the floor next to him, unconsciously wrapping herself up tightly in it, almost as though it were a cocoon, a tent. It was a habit she'd picked up somewhere in childhood and had never quite dropped.

She wasn't ruthless enough to split herself off from him by abandoning him and going separately to her room, but neither could she bear to wake him, knowing that he would then naturally follow her to her bed.

She was not hypocritical enough to share her bed with a man she was not sure she loved; well, not tonight.