Golden Child Sydney has finally reached a new level of happiness in her life: Her first baby. But what if the baby she longed to hold for nine long months is the force behind the complete change in the man she loves, and the result of a brief lapse in judgment?
Chapter 5: Lead Pipe
Disclaimer #1: I don't, nor did or will I ever, own any aspect of Alias. All recognizable characters and plot strands belong to JJ Abrams, not to me.
Disclaimer #2: The basis for this is not mine, either. It originally belonged to Aiden Burn. See Chapter 1.
Disclaimer #3: I'm a die-hard S/V shipper. Please don't shoot me. This fic is Sarkney, and the particular scene Aiden Burn laid out caught my imagination. It was by no fault of my own, the story simply possessed my pen. And my keyboard.
A/N: LivingArtemis, my plot has it set up so that Syd just had a baby. The fact that Sark is "running away" is dependant on the fact that he'd trying to protect Sydney…Not that he's afraid of Vaughn. Besides, Sark's always acting in his own best interests…why would it be too out of character for him to keep a clear distance between himself and someone who clearly would kill him on sight? And just stay tooned…I reveal other interests of his that apply later on, too…
Vaughn drives relentlessly, stopping only to fill his car up with gas. He has no idea where he's going; he doesn't care. He only knows that, at his very core, he needs to find Sydney and Sark and the child she named for him.
A crazed look claims his dark green eyes, but he is calmer now. More reflective than actively furious.
He will make Sydney and Sark pay after he gets rid of their child. The child that should have been his. But that bastard Sark had gotten to her first.
Vaughn lost his father before he ever had a chance to know him. For months, ever since he found Sydney was pregnant, he'd dreamed of being so much more to his son…
He knew that Sydney had been involved with Sark nine months ago, that he'd distracted her for his own purposes, and that it had all ended in a gunfight. He never knew details; she'd never been able to talk about it. She'd been noticeably odd for weeks after returning from the tiny Argentinean town where she went to locate Sark's base of operations.
Apparently she found it.
His own thoughts ring of a disappointed desperation.
She remembers.
She walked into the room, feeling more alive than ever before. No other man had ever made her feel that way, not even Vaughn. For the moment, she allowed herself to be fooled into thinking that it could go on forever like this, that it never had to end. She knew it would hurt all the more when it did if she allowed herself to surrender to the moment he created, to savor the time she had with him, but she didn't care. She'd never felt so alive, never felt anything this close to the emotional high she'd felt on a dangerous mission from which she might not return.
He waited for her, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his tie thrown carelessly across a chair. As he watched her, a devilish grin crossed his face, making him appear at once completely at ease and quit mischievous.
Not mutually exclusive, she mused.
Going straight to him as he knew she would, she tugged his shirt from the waist of his pants as he pushed the straps of her snug red dress from her shoulders and, after thoroughly plundering her lips, kissing his way down her neck and across her shoulders.
She continued to clumsily work at the buttons on his shirt, each of them thoughtlessly removing the other's clothes until they fell onto the perfectly made bed, clad in nothing but the other's arms…
Sydney wakes with a start, at first unsure where she is. She looks to her left and sees Sark at the wheel, and for the briefest of moments she thinks that perhaps it never did end. That her return to LA and the CIA and Vaughn was all a dream.
But then she feels the weight of her son on her lap, and knows that she would not trade her time with Vaughn for the dream her life with Julian Sark will always have been.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Julian? I do not trust you. Not any more, not ever again."
Sydney's voice rises in anger, but there is also a boredom of telling him over and over.
Reaching the end of the driveway and pulling the car into the well kept barn next to the house, Sark calmly put the car in PARK.
"You're exhausted, Sydney. You can't run by yourself right now and take care of the baby too. I'm asking you to take what I'm offering: A chance to regain your strength without constantly having to worry about protecting yourself." Sark's words are just a little too eager. Sydney wonders if he could possibly be so eager to help her, or if she's walking into a trap. If it's the latter, she doesn't stand a chance once she walks into that house.
Not that she stands a chance of running now if that's the case. Suppressing a sigh, Sydney knows that if Julian was bluffing up to this point, she's as good as dead anyway.
"My baby is my first priority," she says, not revealing her internal battle in the decisive crispness of her words.
Sark gives an unseemly snort, as if he can't believe she will still assert her distrust of him so insistently.
"Whom you named Tyler Julian Bristow," he says with no more decorum. "And you put my name on the birth certificate."
Sydney stares hard at Sark for full minutes before she looks away, at the child sleeping in her lap. When she looks back, all of her training in the enemy from seeing how he effects her flies out the window. The mask is gone, and all Sark sees is shyness and hesitation.
"I, uh...I knew it was true," she says finally, unexpectedly answering his question.
A sudden, unbidden image fills Sark's mind at Sydney's utter honesty, not just of her simple words but of her expression. For one brief moment, she was hiding nothing of herself from him, and he sees them as a family, with Sydney as his wife and the two of them raising their son together.
"Sydney, you know, deep in your heart, that I will not hurt you or our baby. Let me help you," he says, a gentleness he's never heard before finding a place in his voice.
Sydney eyes narrow, but her expression still lacks the complete guardedness she always displayed.
"If this were all a plot to remove me from the game forever this time, getting me inside that house and on your turf would be the best strategically move you could make," Sydney says, waiting for his reaction.
"And I know that is why such a leap of faith in my case is so impossible for you," Sark acknowledges, practically holding his breath.
Sydney takes several beats more to debate with herself, but exhaustion must win out.
"I'll stay," she says on a sigh.
Sark breaks out in a huge grin that confuses him as much as it does Sydney.
"But I'm locking my door."
"Understood," Sark argues happily.
May be we can be a family…May be I can change for her…
cancan"And I'm leaving in the morning," she adds, her eyes narrowing even more at Sark's clear state of joy. Something that, like most real human emotions, she can't reconcile with the Julian Sark she encountered back when SD-6 was still around.
But she climbs from the car, and see Sark look over with genuine concern when Julian is startled from his nap.
That's it. That's the end. Comments, questions, creative criticism? Non-flaming reviews are appreciated…