Title: Leaving the Shadows
Category: Set about 5 years after Crossings.
Summary: Sydney and Sark worked together to destroy the Covenant. Along the way they became more than partners. Now they are on the run, hoping to disappear until it all blows over.
Disclaimer: All characters owned by JJ Abrams and others.
(Sark)
Every night I send a silent prayer to a god I don't believe in: she is here with me. She chose me. Most mornings I am of a different mood. We are living in purgatory, Sydney in particular, and it hurts me to watch her pain. All our plans are falling apart. We came here after that disaster of a mission in Paris, hoping to slip across the border into Canada. From there it's on to Chicago, as we fly and drive and backtrack and slowly make are way across the continent, before disappearing off the grid. We just need time: a year, two at most, for things to cool down. After that, maybe the rubble will have cleared. Maybe we will be free.
(Sydney)
I am running, running, running. I have always been running, with the sound of pounding feet behind me and bullets ricocheting off pavement, off the alley walls. He is ahead of me, with the getaway car. Almost there. I am so close I can taste the escape. And then there is the sting of a bullet in my calf, another in my thigh. I stumble, trip, and fall. They are on me in seconds, dragging me up, pointing a gun to my temple…
(Sark)
She is up with a gasp, blanket thrown off and feet landing hard on the wood floor. I know without looking that she is reaching under the pillow for the gun she thinks is there. This time she settles for grabbing the alarm clock, holding it prepped to launch. Moonlight from the windows highlights her strained muscles in blue.
"What's happening? Where am I?"
"Sydney, you're here. You had a nightmare."
Her grip relaxes slightly.
"My gun. Where's my gun?"
"We moved it, remember? To the drawer." Because every time this happens you point something at me. And I'd rather be hit by the alarm clock than by a bullet. "Come back to bed, Sydney."
She looks at me suspiciously before setting down the clock without a sound and sliding back into bed. But she is breathing hard and I feel a fevered heat from her side of the bed. She studiously keeps to the other side of the bed.
"Are you okay? Do you want me to get you anything?"
I don't ask about the dream directly.
"I just want to sleep."
She turns on her side, with her back to me. I extend a hand and slide it down her arm, gauging her response. Her skin is slicked with sweat. She doesn't push me away, but neither does she melt in the caress. I whisper good night and pull my hand back to my side.
(Sydney)
But sleep doesn't come to me. I hear his breathing slow, but I know better than that. I turn to him, into his strong chest, and sure enough he wraps me in his arms, his chin at the crown of my head. I move a hand down his chest, down the smooth ridges of his abdomen, and his breathing quickens. I nuzzle into his neck, kiss down his jugular, bite softly at the inner terminus of his collarbone. Our legs are tangled together. I push his shoulder down into the mattress and stretch out on top of him, bracing on my elbows.
"Please…"
He comes alive with a groan and uses his weight to flip us over. The feel of his body on top of mine is a lens that focuses me and blocks out all the suffering of this life: Danny's death, Will's ruined life, Francie's death, betrayals, my history with SD-6, the CIA, the Covenant. And with Sark.
We danced around this for so long. How many times did he try to kill me? How many times did he offer partnership?
(Sark)
She shudders under me, and soon I am tumbling after her over the edge. She half-collapses to the mattress, and drapes an arm across my chest, one leg over both of mine. A minute later she is sound asleep in my arms. Five minutes after that she is blithely drooling on my shoulder, a quirk I find somehow endearing. Five years ago we were sworn enemies. Now she trusts me, she sleeps in my presence, so deeply that she drools.
We started working together after Korea: I slipped a note to her before our disastrous parting. Luckily she lived long enough to respond. Three weeks passed before she called. I had a plan, a very simple plan.
The Alliance was based on a single goal: profit. Money makes the world go round, as they say. It is a potent motivator. Each cell could function independently. Each person who knew the truth about the Alliance believed in this goal. The Covenant was also based on a single purpose: the Rambaldi quest. But unlike the Alliance, only the founders and highest ranking members of the Alliance actually cared about Rambaldi. Everyone else was in it for the money. My money, actually.
We destroyed the Covenant not by some dramatic simultaneous strike, like how the Alliance fell, but by simple attrition. We killed off the leaders one by one until the monster simply fell apart. It took five years and 107 assassinations to reach this stage: to recover my inheritance and leave the organization in sufficient chaos for us to disappear, while the remaining cells shrivel from lack of funds.
Syd mumbles something incoherent and repositions her leg. My thoughts return to the present, to the busy day we face tomorrow. I let my myself fall asleep.