MIRROR IMAGE
Rating: R
Timeline: Mid-season 3, at least after "Blowback."
Part I, Act 4
She didn't know how, but when she woke up, she'd been tied to a chair.
Then she remembered—Sark—and she felt very, very stupid.
"Welcome back, Agent Bristow," he greeted her.
She looked him in the eye, gauged her chances of bluffing successfully, and said, "How did you know?"
"You told me," he said, pleasantly, and then the door across the room to her right opened, and she was standing there, looking at once very Lauren and completely unrecognizable. It wasn't only the body she was in; it was the black leather pants, the boots, the skin tight top that managed to produce more cleavage from Sydney's serviceable but fairly slight breasts than Sydney or the CIA ever had. Her hair was left loose, her eyes were smoky, lips heavily glossed.
Sydney spared a thought for whether Vaughn would react as well to Laruen in Sydney's skin as he had to Sydney in Lauren's. And then she ached for him again, because he still had no idea.
"Hello, Sydney," Lauren said, coming up beside Sark. His arm slip around her and rested possessively over Sydney's hip, smirking. It was disgusting, and unspeakably erotic.
"How long have I been out?" she demanded.
"Long enough," Sark said, splaying his hand more obviously across her hipbone, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the jutted curve of it.
There was so much wrong with what she was seeing that she couldn't speak. She was sure her horror, her disbelief, was plain on her face. The idea of Lauren sleeping with Sark had turned her stomach, and not only for Vaughn's sake. The idea of Sark touch Sydney's body was disturbing, in a number of ways. But the idea of Lauren experiencing pleasure in Sydney's body, whether at Sark's hands or not, was somehow more horrifying than them both.
"Honestly, Ms. Bristow," he laughed, "you didn't think I'd miss the opportunity to hear my name from your lips in something more than scorn, did you?"
"I hope you enjoyed yourself," Sydney said evenly. "You won't get the chance again."
"I find that very unlikely." His smile was pleasant, close lipped. Lauren was laughing at her. Lauren probably spent a lot of time laughing at her.
Sydney felt bile rise in the back of her throat.
"You see," Sark said, "we haven't yet happened upon a way of reversing the situation. So for the time being you will have to remain in Lauren's body, and she in yours. Which promises me many, many opportunities to hear you cry out my name in pleasure." Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he pressed mouth to the side of Lauren's jaw and slid his hand along her ribs.
Sydney couldn't help the physical reaction to the sight of her own face twisted in pleasure—but she could keep it from registering on her face. She lifted her chin.
"Perhaps I'll return to the CIA in the meantime," Lauren said. "Tell Michael his wife has been killed. Console him. The way you consoled him in Korea?"
Sydney's nostril's flared, but she forced her expression to remain even. "He won't fall for it."
"Oh?" Lauren asked. "I hear you and he met for lunch. That he kissed you. Did he notice then?
This had all been a set up. They'd known. They'd known the whole time. Sark had known when she first walked into the hotel. Maybe before. Was there ever supposed to have been a meeting at all? Or was Sark's call sheerly for their benefit?
Lauren was still speaking; Sydney forced herself to listen.
"Tell me," she was saying, "was the kiss everything he remembered? Had I taught him anything new?"
"My father knows," Sydney said. "He'll tell the CIA. You'd never make it through the door."
"We have Jack," Sark said, and Lauren snapped her head towards him. "Don't worry about that."
Oh God. Sydney closed her eyes.
Lauren moved from Sark to stand over Sydney's chair, a sinuous slide that dripped with sex appeal. Lauren smiled—and then she slapped her.
Sydney's head whipped to the left. She felt her cheek split, and she tasted blood in her mouth.
"Ah, Lauren . . ." she heard Sark say mildly.
"Every time he looked at you," Lauren hissed, "I wanted to kill you. I put two and a half years into this assignment. Put up with Michael's clumsy affections, his pathetic grief. And then you show up and it's like I've done nothing. I have to work twice as hard for Michael's attentions. I have to pretend to try to like you."
Lauren grabbed Sydney's hair and wrenched her head back until Sydney's mouth was a hair's breath away from her own. "If you were wearing anyone's body but my own, you'd be dead right now."
"Lucky me," Sydney spit. The blood from her cheek was thick and wet on her face.
"Lauren," Sark said again.
"The first thing I'm going to do once I'm back in my own body is slit your throat."
Sydney gritted her teeth. "Why don't you go ahead and do it now?"
"No one's doing anything," a woman's voice said from the door way.
Lauren whirled; Sydney thought her heart would stop.
"Mom?" she whispered.
This whole scenario was getting to be a habit.
Irina smiled, softly. "Hello, Sydney," she said. And then she shot her.
A/N: Here ends Act One. Act Two begins back in the beginning, but from Sark's POV. And Sydney's missing time between Act One's third and fourth parts will be filled in. . . .
