Title: Esoteric
Summary:
Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or any of the characters from the show.
Rating: PG-13
Chapter Nine
After three years of working for Rambaldi things had changed in Sydney's life. She owned an apartment where she lived on her own, sometimes entertaining guests like Vaughn and his wife and their twins, or Eric and his latest girlfriend, and often spending time with Julian Sark.
After being forced to work together they had talked mostly of their daughter, Sark wanting to know anything and everything he could about her and Sydney had been happy to retell the story of her daughter's life on numerous occasions. After months of talking about Faith they eventually moved on to other subjects, such as work, or life, even Sark sometimes offering information about himself.
After three years of shared mourning and solace Sydney Bristow had finally learnt to trust Julian Sark, who often told her of his hate for Milo Rambaldi for causing him to lose his only child.
Rambaldi was a different story though. With each passing day Sydney had built up more and more hatred for the woman who incessantly tried to pursue Sydney's affections in the hope of gaining another child.
When Sark knocked on her door after she had returned from work she answered and found him holding a tape. "Rambaldi…proof…plans…everything…told me." He panted breathlessly and handed her the tape.
She helped him inside and poured him a glass of wine to steady him. "Listen to the tape." He instructed. "Rambaldi told me her plans this evening. They're enough to have her arrested and locked away to rot in a federal prison for the rest of eternity."
Sydney played the tape and listened intently. "Julian, I have recently re-acquired everything I need to create another child. Sydney has no idea that over the past two years she has unwillingly acquired most of the equipment and chemicals I needed to do so."
"Why do you want another child to Sydney? You could have a family with anyone, why her?"
"Because, the DNA mix of the three of us make the perfect child. The child will not only see visions of the future, but echoes of the past. He or she could sense people's emotions, their fears and their dreams and use them against them. My DNA mixed with the right chromosomes from both you and Sydney allows the child these abilities. It cuts out natural selection and creates a human being evolved thousands of years beyond this time. We can use the child against governments and monarchs, presidents and armies, anyone who stands in our way. The world would be our oyster Julian."
The tape ended there and Sydney looked to Sark. "That's a pretty tempting offer for someone with your past Julian, it must have taken a lot to resist it." Sark shook his head.
"I won't let her defile my daughter's memory by trying to replace her." Sark objected. "And I'm a changed man Sydney. You helped me make amends. I won't let her hurt you again. We need to stop her."
Sydney nodded in agreement. "I know just what we need." Grabbing her coat she led Sark out of her house and instructed him to drive to the Vaughn residence.
When Nicole Vaughn opened the door and found Sydney and Sark on her doorstep in the middle of the night when they weren't expecting guests she knew something was wrong. "Sydney?" Vaughn came up to the door and looked anxious. "What's wrong?"
"Get Marshall here A.S.A.P." Sydney instructed as Nicole led them to the living room. "It's time to see how many bits Rambaldi has to be in before she can't revive herself." Nicole grinned widely at the prospect of getting rid of Rambaldi and being able to test her and Marshall's work.
"I'll phone Marshall!" Nicole beamed. "We'll have to make sure the containers are all ready…maybe we should reinforce them with led…" Vaughn smiled at his wife's excitement.
"That's my geek." He teased.
After Marshall and Jack arrived they set to work planning how they would take Rambaldi out while Marshall and Nicole went over last minute alterations to the containers that would hold Rambaldi.
"I can't die, so I'm going to have to be the one to take on Rambaldi." Sydney explained as they sat at the Vaughn's dinning room table. "The rest of you I'll need to help…separate the parts of Rambaldi after I kill her, in the past two years I've seen her die eight times, each time she takes no less than two minutes and no more than three and a half to revive, but her full strength doesn't return for hours…so if we fail we try again, understood?"
The others nodded or muttered their understanding and they continued to plan everything to the tiniest detail. "Will the containers hold?" Sydney asked as Marshall and Nicole packed them in to cases for them all to carry, one container per person present.
"They should survive nuclear exposure, temperatures of over one thousand degrees Celsius and under two hundred and fifty degrees Celsius, anything that gets thrown at them." Nicole and Marshall explained proudly.
"Ok. Then it's on. Tomorrow night, we put the plan in to action. Marshall, Nicole you look after the twins and Mitchell. The rest of you go to the meeting point and stay out of sight until Rambaldi is dead, then we each take our piece, boards our flights and hide the container somewhere in our destinations through out the worlds, none of us tell the others where they hid it and we all guard the combinations to open our containers with our lives, because if Rambaldi is freed again they won't be worth living, understood?"
The next night Rambaldi found Sydney sitting in her office waiting for her long after the others had gone home. "Sydney, how can I help you?" Rambaldi asked as she sat on the edge of her desk facing Sydney who, like herself, had not aged a day in eleven years it had been since they had first met.
"It's…it would have been Faith's birthday today. She would have been twelve. Lauren and I had always promised that when she turned twelve she was allowed a BMX…she was such a tom boy." Sydney smiled absently. "I miss her so much."
"You don't have to." Rambaldi offered. "Another child would look identical to her, we could raise her together Sydney and we could both have the family we so desperately want."
"Sark would never do it…" Sydney objected.
"We could convince him Sydney, with the two of us confronting him he'll fold easily. Please."
"Alright." Sydney gave in. " I know where Sark is, we can both try and convince him tonight, the sooner we do the quicker we can have a family."
When Sydney pulled up in the warehouse she used to use to see Vaughn when she was a double in the Alliance Rambaldi was the first out of the car and she looked confused. "Why is Sark here?"
"He isn't." She turned around to see Sydney holding a gun aimed at her chest. She laughed and shook her head in disbelief.
"What good is that going to do Sydney? It won't kill me. I'm immortal, just like you and I'm all you have."
"I've waited three years for this Rambaldi, and you have no idea how good it feels, because if you I don't have Lauren anymore, and I don't have Faith. I've wanted to make you pay for so long…and now I can. I don't care if the CIA needs you, I need you dead, and I've decided to put my needs first for a change."
"You can't kill me."
"No, but I can hurt you." Sydney fired the gun until the bullets stopped tearing at Rambaldi's flesh and the immortal prophet dropped to the ground. She grinned and shook her head.
"Enjoy your two minutes of freedom Sydney."
The second Rambaldi's eyes shut over as she lay in a pool of blood the others emerged carrying axes. Vaughn, Dixon, Weiss, Sark and Jack went to work and within two minutes Rambaldi had been separated in to six containers.
Wordlessly the six people present separated and headed for their flights. Weiss went to Cairo, Dixon to Moscow, Jack to London, and Vaughn went to Australia, leaving Sydney the destination she had chosen.
She took the large container that held Rambaldi's upper chest and found the small graveyard in the town she had seen only once before, from the mountain over looking it.
She dug a grave in the sweltering heat of the Italian summer and after it was deep enough she laid the container inside it. Once it was covered she found an old tombstone which dated back over two hundred years and heaved it to the fresh grave, marking where the great Milo Rambaldi's heart was buried, back in the place it had been born it.