MIRROR IMAGE

Rating: R.
Timeline: Mid-season 3, after "Blowback."

Part IV, Act 3

"I've just spoken to your mother," Sark said as Sydney emerged, freshly showered and safely dressed in a pair of pajama pants and a white t-shirt, Lauren's hair damp and loose around her shoulders.

He stood by the bedside table nearest the window, still in black—turtleneck, slacks, sleek and dangerous and severe. The covers of the hotel bed had been turned down, exposing the crisp white of the sheets. They were wrinkled, but just barely; he'd been sitting on them, she realized, and then realized further that she rarely thought of him sitting, when she thought of him at all. And the idea that he would later be asleep, prone, much less in a room she also occupied . . . .

Sydney had tried to argue for separate rooms—the CIA would be searching for them as a couple, it would be safer if they split up—but he'd simply looked at her, and laughed, and made her wonder exactly how inept the CIA had been in the past to provoke that sort of reaction. He'd reminded her that the room was rented on the Covenant's dime, would appear on the Covenant's expense reports, and that it was far more important at the moment to appear to be who they said they were than to appear not to be. She had to admit he was right, at least to herself. Outwardly she'd steeled her expression and allowed him to request the single room with its full bed. And a rollaway cot.

"My wife's been ill," he had said, looking at Sydney, gaze full of false compassion. "She doesn't want to keep me awake with her coughing."

He'd taken her hand in his, then turned his soft smile on the man behind the check-in desk. Sydney had faked a few sniffles with her own apologetic smile, internally irritated. She hated playing sick; she'd never had any patience with it, even when she was a kid. Of course, her parents always knew when she was lying—it hadn't made sense, then, or seemed fair. Now, well, it still didn't seem fair, but at least she knew why it had been so difficult to fake illness successfully.

"And?" Sydney asked, lowering herself into the room's single armchair and tucking her bare feet under her body.

"I assumed—rightly—that she would be interested in the change in our situation. And in Sloane's appearance. Tell me, Sydney. What did he want from you?"

She was surprised he had waited this long to ask; it left her wondering if he really wanted to know the answer, because surely he knew she'd had enough time to take the truth and craft something believable from it. Or perhaps he was just curious as to how much she was willing to tell.

"He wanted to talk to me about the disk," she said, and that much was true.

He'd gestured her into a chair, something older and grander than she was used to, and sat across from her, across the desk, and for a moment it felt like old times: both old times, the admiration and devotion that had characterized their relationship for so long overlayed with bitter hatred and the sour desire for revenge. He skipped preliminaries, which she wouldn't have responded to anyway, and went right to the subject at hand. They could work together—procure the disk, extract Lauren and make the switch. That would be easier. Or she could remain his prisoner until the disk was safely in his possession.

"Why even bother bringing me here?" she had demanded. "If you can get the disk on your own, why involve me at all?"

"Knowing how you feel about me?" Sloane smiled, and his eyes crinkled at the edges.

"Yes."

She knew the signs of his misdirection: the inflection of his voice, the shift in his shoulders. She'd spent months studying it, learning its particularities. If he had an answer, it wasn't one he would share with her.

"Sydney, I would never want for you to be . . . to have to remain in your present situation. I would like your help, yes. I've missed working with you. I've missed . . . what we used to share. But either way you decide, you will be returned to your body. I promise you."

"Because your word," she said, "is so reliable."

He looked injured. Perhaps he was. But she'd learned that his feelings weren't a reliable indicator of his actions. They were false, and hollow. "Sydney, I wish there was some way for you to trust me again."

"There's not."

Their eyes met, hers hard but his—even harder, a battle of wills taking place in the contact. He gave in first, stood, and turned towards his left, lightly picking up the single picture frame that sat on his desk. Sydney could just barely make out the image: a woman, dark-haired. It wasn't Emily.

"I knew you and Mr. Sark were going after the disk," he said, looking down at her. "I couldn't allow that."

"So you set up this meet. Told the Covenant Ana was going to be here."

When he turned to gaze out the window, she palmed the letter opener left on the desk, slid it up into her sleeve.

"I was just doing my job as Covenant informer," he said, voice rich with an amusement she could only describe as smarmy and a flair she despised. "I informed."

"I can't do this without Sark," she found herself saying. "He's the one who knows the facility. What did you do with him?"

Sloane looked as bemused at her question as she felt, as if this were an aspect he'd neglected to take into account. She didn't blame him; she wouldn't have. "He's secured. You don't need him to get the disk. Or Lauren. You'd have more access to McKennas Cole's headquarters alone, and I have assets ready to 'rescue' Ms. Reed at my word."

It was only then that the thought occurred to her. Anger flared up in her, almost blinding. "You knew, didn't you? You knew that Lauren was . . ."

"Covenant? Yes. I've known for months now. Since I became a double agent for the CIA."

"You've never worked for anyone but yourself," Sydney spit, fingering the end of the letter open, tamping down on her desire to use it. She had to pick her moment carefully. She wouldn't get more than one opportunity.

"My work," he said, coming around to lay a hand on the back of her chair, "has always been in service of something greater."

"Rambaldi," Sydney said, allowing all the loathing she felt come fully into her eyes.

She could feel the sudden tension, the shutting off of his emotions, more than see it; his eyes were dark and cold and harder than she'd ever seen them. "Work with me, Sydney. Or against me. It's your choice."

"I'll take against, thanks."

She stabbed the letter opener into his hand. The force of it knocked the chair to the floor. The picture frame fell, slid across the room. She grabbed his wrist and twisted until he was down on his knees. Yanking both his arms behind him, she pressed the dull edge of the metal to his throat.

"Tell me," she hissed. "Tell me what all this is really about."

His voice was hideously calm, considering the situation. Inexorable.

"I never wanted you to have to know this, Sydney. But before your mother . . . died . . . she and I had an affair. . . ."

Forcing herself back to the moment, she turned her eyes to Sark. "I believe my mother has a mole inside her operation. Or you do."

Sark returned her gaze, the intention in his expression unreadable. "Sloane thought he could convince you to hand it over to him?"

"Yes."

"You didn't agree."

"No."

"And why is it, Sydney, that I should believe you? Considering the fact he just . . . let you go?"

"He didn't just let me do anything," she fired back. But her own doubts nagged at her. It shouldn't have been that easy to escape. It was almost as if he'd wanted her to. Left the letter opener out, made himself as vulnerable as possible.

Sark was watching her cynically.

"I would never work with that son of a bitch," she swore. "I'd rather work with—"

"Me?" Sark looked amused.

"It was too easy," she admitted, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

"You should get some sleep," he said after a few moments. "Tomorrow may be . . . trying." He collected his leather jacket from the foot of the bed where it had been carefully draped.

His hand was on the doorknob before she spoke.

"Where are you going?"

"Out," he said—not unkindly. It was simply a statement. "I shouldn't be long."

She surveyed the room briefly for comestibles. Only the poorly stocked mini-bar. "Did you drug anything this time?"

He laughed, a staccato sound that, strangely, warmed her. "Hardly, Sydney." And then he left her to her troubled thoughts, the look on Vaughn's face, and the weight of Sloane's revelation.

It was hours later before he returned to the hotel room. He slid the card into the reader, waited for the light to flicker green, then pushed the door open. The room was dark, he could just make out Sydney's—Lauren's—form tangled up in the covers of the bed. Latching the door, he shed his coat and unbuckled his belt. After a moment's hesitation, he pulled his shirt off, and his shoes as well.

He nudged Sydney's shoulder. "Sydney. Move over."

Her eyes opened sleepily; the face she wore was lovely and lax. "Why?"

Mild irritation. "Because you've taken up the entire bed."

Her gaze flickered to the cot, still folded up by the wall.

"I'm not sleeping on the bloody cot," he told her. He'd only requested it to keep her from murdering him in the hotel lobby. If she felt so strongly, she could take the cot.

"Hold on," she murmured as she extricated her legs from the blankets. The fabric of her pants had ridden up, baring Lauren's cool, slim calves. Finally free, Sydney scooted over towards the window, and turned her back on him. Most of the covers, predictably, went with her.

Shaking his head, he slid in beside her. A warning tug on the coverlet yielded his share, and he pulled them around himself gingerly, careful not to touch his ever-appealing bedmate. He was troubled from his errand. He'd thought he had outgrown feeling soiled from his work almost a decade previous, but the world never ceased to surprise him. It was one of the things he rather despised about it. He preferred the predictable. Which may have been, he allowed, what appealed to him so much about Sydney Bristow. He could always count on her anger, and her scorn.

Settling onto his back, he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

"I've always wondered what you'd sleep in," Sydney murmured. She shifted, turning until she was laying on her back as well.

He turned his head. "You've thought about me in bed." That was somewhat heartening.

"I had this dream once," she continued in that same low, drowsy tone, "where I snuck into your room in the middle of the night."

He'd had that dream as well. "And?" he inquired.

"And then I killed you." She rolled her head to the side, towards him. "You were wearing boxer briefs."

He looked up to the ceiling, thinking, Heaven help me, and closed his eyes. "In black, I presume?"

"Of course," she said. And then, "Sark?"

He had barely reopened his eyes when she as bent over him, kissing him, mouth soft, curls brushing against his cheek and teasing at his throat.

"I want you to show me," she said, and her breath was warm across his lips. "Show me how Lauren likes to be touched."

Of their own accord, his hands came up and fisted in her hair, holding her mouth to his. Familiar contours—but an unfamiliar feeling, the seeking way they met his own, the blind need in their trembling. He found himself stirred to tenderness, a thing he'd never felt with Lauren and a thing he'd never thought to associate with the woman now in his arms.

"Sydney," he tried to say, pressing her hair back away from Lauren's face, cradling her head in his hands.

"I need to know," she insisted, eyes gleaming with determination, and tears, "what she's really like."

She wet her lips, and he groaned, relented, pulled her mouth back to his. The taste of her was twice as intoxicating in the dark. He couldn't say no. Not to her; not like this. Not after tonight. Her mouth was a redemption for sins he hadn't yet committed, for betrayals he was yet to undertake.

"Lay back," he said in hushed tones, urging her back to her side of the bed and coming up onto one elbow. "And take off your shirt."

Her eyes were solemn as she sat up, lifting the fabric over her head and exposing Lauren's breasts to the air. He let his fingers glide over her collarbone, the swell of her breasts, used his hand to guide her back to the mattress. He forgot sometimes how truly lovely Lauren was. He did not desire her because she was beautiful; he never had. He desired her because she was deadly, and efficient, with an economy of movement that was attractive for its polish and its razor-sharpness. She didn't like him to tell her she was beautiful; she got enough of that, he assumed, from Agent Vaughn. Or else she didn't, and his use of the words only reminded her of what she wasn't receiving at home. At her failure to properly do her job.

"Lauren," he murmured, laying his hand lightly across the flutter of her stomach, "prefers it fast."

In one lightening quick movement, he straddled her, slid his fingers beneath the waist of her pajama bottoms, and yanked them down over her hips. Parting her thighs with his palms, he drove his thumb into her.

"And hard."

Her back arched off the bed, and Sydney gasped. A hot feeling of gratification filled him at the sound. And at the slickness of her body. Still working his thumb, he slid the pants free of her legs.

He lowered his mouth to her belly; her skin was still soft and warm with sleep. Delicious. He couldn't dwell on it. Shouldn't. Apprehension was already warring with her desire, with the responses of her body, and if he didn't move quickly he'd miss his chance entirely. He leaned up, sliding his hand out of her and up her torso, licking up the column of her neck, brushing his lips along her jaw.

She caught his hand in hers, squeezed his fingers so tightly they began to tingle. Lack of circulation. "Tell me what to do," she whispered.

She was asking for his help; she was putting her trust in him. She needed him.

"Turn over," he breathed into her ear.

He'd never considered himself a shallow person—both beauty and identity, in his world, were only skin deep—but still he was surprised to find himself more moved, more stirred, by Sydney's presence in his bed than by her body's. He smoothed his hands along her back, thumbs tracing the contour of her spine, then fanned them out over her hips. Sliding his fingers beneath her, he lifted. She came willingly. Settling her on her knees, he unfastened his pants and pushed them down. Finally disrobed, he hesitated.

"Sark," she said, "I don't know how she'd—"

His stomach turned; he was rock hard and waiting and just the sight of her there, wet, yearning, made him feel light-headed. He squeezed his eyes shut, and wished he weren't so pathetically vulnerable this way, with a woman beneath him. He wished he were colder.

"Just be Sydney," he choked out.

"Sydney would never let you do this."

Sudden fury blinded him, and made him harder. Bracing himself on one arm, he grasped her by the hair, yanked it back until she gave a started, strangled gasp, until he could see her face, until she could see his.

"Sydney is."

Her eyes flashed fire for long seconds in which he nearly feared for his life. And then they settled into embers, complicity plain in a way it never had been when Lauren wore that face, and he released his grip on her curls, pushing them to one side of her neck to kiss her there. She bent her head to let him.

"Lauren," he said, "is nothing like you. She's less bright than she believes, less deadly, but has an unlimited capacity to deceive. She has a tendency to let her feelings of self-pity compromise her work, and an inability to accept responsibility for her mistakes. She enjoys causing pain."

Sydney laughed, shortly, disbelievingly, distractedly. "And you don't?"

She was straining back against him, breathing shallow, trying to force him into her, but he held himself rigidly apart. He'd finish this. He'd give her what she desired.

"I enjoy the things causing pain occasionally accomplishes. Lauren enjoys the process. And she has a way with a man's heart that you will never be able to achieve. That's all you need to know." He spread her thighs, stroked her open, inhaled the familiar musk of Lauren's body. "Forget about her.

And as he thrust himself inside of her—sweet, sweet heat, familiar yielding flesh braced newly against his hips—he hoped for her sake that she could.

-

A/N: Thank you so, so much to those of you who've reviewed here at . . so, you know, basically . . . annie. I think I've lost most people reading to my updates over at SD-1. :)

annie: In my Alias universe, at least, I think Vaughn did love Lauren, or at least the parts of Lauren that he knew. There's that deleted scene about the brainwashing in the season three DVDs, but even so—I think he honestly did love her. She, however? Probably wasn't very fond of him. Maybe she was during the time before Sydney came back, but very quickly thereafter, any affection she had for him likely turned sour. So there you have it: in my little offshoot, anyway. Doesn't mean he didn't love Syd, though, or that he didn't love her more/better. I disagree with Weiss—I think you CAN be in love with two people at once.