Disclaimer: See Prologue (what is now Chapter 1: The First Six Months).
A/N: The thing that is terrifying about ending a story is that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that at least one of your readers will absolutely hate your ending--and consequently you, the author. Everyone has their own ideas abouthow the story should end, and so what you see written here is simply my version. If you just flat out detest my ending, pretend that I never posted it. Thank you to my faithful reviewers/encouragers, especially alexx, aliaslover14, Karone Evertree, SuP3R G1R, southerncross, JuliaAtHeart, cj tiesto, and Agent Pheonix for sticking with this strange and often confusing tale. I am never without a smile when I read your messages.
The following chapter is the last in Solitude, starting with an objective conversation, and shifting to Sark's POV (in italics). On a final note, I leave you all with this: whatever you may have thought of the story, you must remember this: Solitude never was an AU to begin with. Much love, Sondra.
She kept her promise to me; my Sydney, that is. She was there whenever I needed her, whenever I felt that I would crack. She was right: she kept me sane. She saved me.
xxx
"Sydney?"
"Yes, Julian?"
A deep breath. "You're not real."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you don't exist. You're not really here talking to me. You're just something I made up, so I can deal with the tedium, the darkness… the solitude. The real Sydney Bristow died. You're not real."
"Of course I'm not," she answered, shrugging. "But then, you've always known that, Julian. Jack Bristow told you that I was in the fire at my apartment. He told you that they had identified my remains. Don't you remember?"
"Yes… but I didn't want to."
She smiled at him, almost comfortingly. "I know."
The silence stretched out like a mile between them. Finally, he spoke.
"Sydney?"
"Yes, Julian?"
His voice broke. "…Don't—don't leave me, all right?"
"Don't worry, Julian. I won't."
xxx
She kept her promise to me; my Sydney, that is. She was there whenever I needed her, whenever I felt that I would crack. She was right: she kept me sane. She saved me.
Sydney stopped coming a few months later when Agent Dixon—or Director Dixon, presumably—came and told me I was to be traded, like a cheap baseball card, to a new terrorist group called The Covenant. My stomach clenched when I heard the name, a name I had heard whispered in the corners of dark clubs, discussed in seedy alleyways. A name that was only a rumour two years ago…
I was left alone for a long time then, but I didn't mind. I would be free soon, albeit in the clutches of what could be a dangerous enemy, but at least I would be free from these walls, and uninterrupted silence.
It was only a few days, maybe a week, before the unbelievable happened once again: Sydney Bristow walked back into my life.
"I wanted a word before you get traded." I could only look on in shock. This was actually Sydney Bristow. Not my Sydney, she couldn't be. She stood safely behind the glass window in the empty corridor, safe away from my touch. She was as untouchable as my Sydney had been, but my Sydney never stood outside the glass window, watching me, judging me.
"Dear God," I finally say, "It can't possibly be you."
"Don't start this conversation by acting surprised that I'm alive."
I almost laugh at her words. "Sydney, you know how highly I regard your abilities as an operative, but…even I didn't think you were capable of cheating death once your remains had been identified… which begs the question: if it wasn't your body they removed from the ashes, whose was it?" I stand, asking myself the same question.
"I read the transcripts of your confession... including the fact that you and a woman named Allison Doren killed my friend Francie."
'But you know all about Allison,' I almost tell her, 'and Francie, don't you remember? I told you.' But of course she wouldn't remember. I didn't tell her. I didn't tell her anything. Carefully, painfully, I put on the façade of the only way she knew me: cold, distant, sarcastic Mr. Sark.
"If you've read my transcript," I sniff, "you know how cooperative I've been. I'll be glad to pay you the same courtesy if you simply tell me what you're getting at."
She looks at me as though she's looking at a bug. My Sydney never looked at me like that. I suddenly grew very cold.
"That explosion in my apartment was a cover up…to make the CIA believe I was dead. What I believe is that Sloane abducted me. I think you know why, but you failed to mention that in your confession."
'I've already confessed everything to you, Syd. You just weren't alive to hear it.' Instead, I smirk at her through the glass wall of my cell. "If I'm to understand what you're saying, you have no idea where you've been for the last two years." Has it really been that long?
She remains silent. "None?" I goad.
I laugh when she shoots me a dirty look that is completely her own. "Unbelievable!" I say, still reeling from what she has revealed. I chuckle again for good measure. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh," I tell her. She's seething behind the glass. "It's just… I'm speechless."
"Sydney," I say, shrugging, falling easily into the easy banter I shared with her during our two years 'together', "if Sloane had intended to abduct you, I wasn't privy to it".
She glares at me. I stare back openly. I still can't believe that she's actually standing before me, alive, and whole. Then, I feel my stomach drop as I realize: she would no longer be my Sydney. Technically, she never was. From this day forward, we would be enemies again, on opposite sides of the glass, on opposite sides of the game. Her presence here now was evidence of that. To her, I was always her enemy, and I always would be.
"What if I said I still don't believe you?" she pursues.
In true villain fashion, just as she expected I would do, I smirk at her, cocking an eyebrow. In her case, it kills me, but I always play the role I'm assigned.
"I'd say it'd make no difference," I tell her, injecting as much smug self assurance as I can into my words. Words meant to hurt her.
"In twenty four hours," I continue, "I'll be free. And you…you'll remain in the dark." I have to bite the insides of my cheek to avoid calling out to her, to tell her I don't mean to hurt her. To tell her that I love—no. I can't. Never.
I'm sorry, Sydney. This is a bloody way of paying you back for what you've done for me, but then again, I do have to realize that it never was you. There never was "us." There was only that cell, and the silence, and the solitude.
Fin.