*

We don't stop moving until London.

He assures me that it's the best place for intel - I'm a little less than comfortable about sliding from the States into what is essentially the States' pocket, and the articles I read on the flight over do nothing to dispel that concern.

The world has gone insane, I think. My years of tactical training and political study are unaffected by my fugue, and I comb through the pages of newsprint in disbelief. Situations that should have remained covert are blasted across headlines, the Geneva Convention ignored; I try to see advantage for one side or the other, but there's nothing there.

I'm reminded of the King Solomon parable, and how he threatened to cut a baby in half to satisfy the two women claiming to be its mother. The parallel is imperfect, though - neither side seems to realize that, through such relentless fighting, they're ripping the future apart. There is no Solomon to judge the contest.

The world is being spun by fools.

For a moment, I'm tempted to mention my analogy to Sark, and I turn to him. But he is just as engrossed as I am, and the look on his face is different - where I see tragedy, he sees opportunity. His eyes dart from page to page in an assessing manner, as though he's already figuring how to play one faction off the other.

Far from feeling horrified, I'm relieved. Even in this new world, some things haven't changed.

We don't bother talking. There's too much to ingest, and neither of us like going at things half-informed. And so we read, observe. I memorize the currency exchanges at the airport while Sark accesses the State Department's travel advisory. People rush by us, embracing and crying, and my stomach plummets for a moment, because that's what a homecoming should be like.

Even if you didn't know you were gone in the first place, that's how love reacts. Or at least I thought.

The hotel is on the outskirts of London, eight miles out from the river, a place where neither of us has been before. It's a small hotel, a converted mews house, and we register as a couple. The landlady chatters about visiting Marx's grave and the quaint village streets nearby, but she falls silent at Sark's impassive expression. I force a look of interest and take the key, and she gives me a confused and wavering smile.

What must she think of me, having married such a cold, cold man.

We've been awake for over forty-eight hours, and it shows. I collapse into the small armchair beside the window as he looks around the room, his fingers lightly tracing the tops of doors, the insides of lampshades. When I move to join the search, he looks at me and shakes his head slightly. Selfishly, I am relieved.

I am embarrassed and irritated by my own lack of stamina, but Sark hasn't once mentioned the change. At one point, I remember he made me eat an enormous sandwich, and since arriving in England he's been fetching me cups of tea. He doesn't do it solicitously, just brings me a cup when he gets one for himself. He takes two sips of each cup, then leaves it to go cold.

He thinks I'm too worn out to notice.

I notice.

*

As a teenager, I dreamt of situations like this.

I fantasized for weeks about a Spanish class trip to Mexico. These were not daydreams to speak of to girlfriends - these were intensely private scenarios, the kind written in diaries and seen on movie screens. A boy and a girl, all but strangers, forced to share close quarters. The tension would be delicious as we tried not to invade each others' space, as we changed into nightclothes with averted eyes, as he gallantly offered the bed to me and I brazenly refused (after all, there was only one blanket, and the bed would be big enough for two). And then we would climb into bed together, at first hugging the opposite sides of the bed, but eventually meeting in the middle, all soft skin and tentative touches. And maybe then we'd kiss.

Well, I was thirteen. I didn't know how to imagine the other stuff.

I suddenly jerk awake and realize that all the lights are out in the room, save one. Sark is sitting up in bed, poring over some sort of manuscript. I've fallen asleep in an odd position - my left arm and shoulder are sore and painful, and as I straighten up, I gasp. Sark ignores it, and I'm grateful.

"How long?"

His eyes never leave his papers. "About two hours - it's nine o'clock."

My shoulder twinges again. "Okay." Groggily, I scoop up the duty free bag from the airport and make my way into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

I hadn't been taking very good care of myself before starting this adventure, and the woman who stares back at me in the mirror is barely recognizable. The mind plays strange tricks; no matter how many times I try to correct it, my memory insists that I look the same as I did on my graduation day. So the shock of this dull-skinned, pale, sunken stranger strikes me again every time.

I don't really like mirrors anymore.

The shower isn't as hot as I'd like, but it's fierce, pounding on my shoulder until the muscles finally give up their frozen state. I've become slightly obsessed with scented shampoos, and this one is no different - the odor seems to impregnate every last molecule of the steamy air, and the delicious sensation of being wrapped in something warm and gentle almost sends me to sleep. Only the sudden end to the hot water drives me from the shower, fully awake once more.

Sark's still awake, but brooding. He's found a pen and paper somewhere, and his hand flies across the page, sketching out elaborate diagrams. I watch dozily from the chair in the corner, trying to coax my hair to dry in the autumn breeze that comes in the window. Occasionally his pen strikes out in a violent motion, scoring out a symbol that must represent some ally or enemy. Every once in a while he glances up and watches my hair as I comb my fingers through it, once, again, again. It seems to relax him as much as it does me.

When my hair won't soak the pillow, I finally get into bed. The shirt and shorts from the airport crackle stiffly as I shift under the covers, giving off the chemical smell of New Clothes. I don't bother edging to the side of the bed in exaggerated politesse - we will split this space evenly, as we have all others.

"You didn't tell me about Jack."

That comes out of nowhere, like a sharp slap, and my pleasant languor ebbs away.

"No. I thought you'd know." I don't like the brittleness in my own voice. I don't want him to push the issue.

"I didn't." No movement of his is without import; at this precise moment, he leans across me and places a mobile phone on the bedside table. I don't know where he got it. I don't want to know.

There is every possibility that his sources know more than the CIA about my father, but I don't ask. I can't. Because the CIA know that my father is dead, and they have the body. Any information Sark has collected will only shed light on a time that I need to stay in the dark.

I lie on my stomach, my arms folded beneath my head. My shoulder is throbbing again, tension returning as though it had never left.

This is an odd thing about being dead: I cannot mourn for my father. He is dead. I know that, on some level, but...

I've tried to explain it to myself a million times, and haven't gotten very far. It's as though somehow, somewhere, there is another Sydney. One who never died, whose father never went on an ill-fated mission after Sloane. And that Sydney's father, that Jack, is fine right now. He's going to the office, he's plotting, he's getting things done.

But that's that Sydney.

I'm another Sydney. My father died six months ago, along with all of the operatives on his mission. And I'm used to that fact, because it's never been any other way.

I guess it's hard to get upset about particular things. Vaughn got married. Dad got killed. Marshall got promoted, and Weiss got an incredibly bad haircut. Will got transferred to Spain for a few months, then Israel, then Japan, then back to LA. The world got meaner, the president got a few hundred thousand troops into a horrible mess in Asia, the description of my job changed. I died, and then I was reborn.

If I accept this new life, then I have to accept the bad with the good. And somehow, in a remote, barely-thinkable way, my father no longer exists in my world. He lives somewhere just out of sight and out of reach, out of touch. I can sense him with everything but my senses.

I'm barely aware of Sark's hand pulling the duvet up and over my shoulders, or the way he clears my hair away from his pillow, where it has left damp stripes. Once my mind starts on this loop, this guilt about not feeling guilt, it's hard for me to shake it.

So I don't notice until later, after the light's been off for almost an hour, that he's fallen asleep facing in towards me, his arm curving along the mattress over my head. And that's when I finally tumble into unconsciousness, knowing that there will be no meeting in the middle, no tentative contact and clumsy kisses. But tonight, for the first time in this life, I'm sleeping in the shelter of someone who protects me.

And for tonight, that's enough.

* tbc