Title by Tiger Army, quote by Rise Against.
II. Ghosts of Memory
Hold on. Slow down.
Take it from the top, now, and tell me everything.
While she showered, Sark sat quietly in one of the hotel room's two armchairs. Others might have paced, but he had never been much for pacing. He could think perfectly well from a comfortable reclining position, so he saw no reason to do otherwise.
It had been quite a trick to get her inside. He'd brought her to the back entrance, used the freight elevator, wanting to avoid anyone finding out that the CIA's own Sydney Bristow was alive and well and living—well, huddling—in London. The last thing he needed was to be tagged as her accomplice. Luckily, he'd wreaked enough havoc on the hallway security cameras to be relatively sure they'd be out of commission for another day or two.
The question remained, though—the crucial question.
Why was he doing this?
Sark soon concluded that dwelling on his motives was a pointless endeavor. He had done what he had done, and the much more pressing issue was now what to do about . . . this woman. Sydney Bristow. He had to think of her as Sydney, because otherwise the whole situation took on such an absurdly complicated hypothetical slant that he couldn't be bothered to fathom it. No matter how unlikely it might seem—what with her being supposedly dead—he would continue to assume that Agent Bristow was the woman currently showering in his hotel room.
So . . . now what?
His mind took a momentary break from analyzing the entirety of the situation to deliver a practical reminder. Clothes. She'll need clothes.
When Sydney emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, clad in the complimentary robe that was too big for her, a mismatched heap of clothing was waiting on the bed. She stared at it, then turned a confused glance on Sark.
"I don't know how much will fit, but it's the best I could do."
Abstractly, he noticed that he spoke to this strange version of Sydney in a cautious, formal tone. He disliked that. He disliked the sensation of not knowing where he stood in the current situation. He also disliked having to buy female undergarments for a possibly deranged, possibly amnesiac, possibly unfathomably conniving CIA agent who had threatened his life more than once, but that was another topic altogether.
She disappeared once again with an armful of clothing and emerged in yoga pants and a t-shirt, both too large.
"Thank you," she murmured, so softly he almost didn't catch it. Bristow approached and sat in the chair opposite his, her movements slow and careful, never taking her eyes off him. The paranoia was actually comforting—it was nice to know not everything had changed.
"Do you know me?" asked Sydney, and all comfort vanished. "You said my name was . . ."
"Sydney Bristow," he supplied.
"Yes." She nodded to herself. "Of course. I know that, its just . . . confusing, sometimes." Her tone was defensive. "There are so many others. Julia."
"What?" For a split second Sark thought she'd called him by his first name, and was understandably taken aback.
"Julia. Are you sure my name isn't Julia?"
"Quite sure," he assured her, feeling spectacularly ill-equipped to deal with this conversation's turn for the surreal.
Sydney closed her eyes, presumably to concentrate. Her knees were tucked beneath her chin, and her fingers tightly interlaced over her knees. "Julia . . . Thorne," she murmured, and then repeated it: "Julia Thorne."
"You think your name is Julia Thorne?" he asked, attempting to clarify.
Her eyes snapped open, and all the old temper had returned. "My name is Sydney Bristow, you ugly bastard."
For a tense, prolonged moment, Sark merely stared at her, stunned into silence. "Well," he finally remarked. "You seem to have regained your certainty."
"Sorry." From the look on her face, she seemed confused and mortified in equal parts. "I didn't mean to . . ." The sentence trailed off into nothing as she studied Sark carefully, brow furrowed. It almost looked painful, the effort she was apparently putting into this business of remembering.
"What didn't you—"
"Wait!" she interrupted, and her intelligent brown eyes finally regarded Sark with the customary suspicion. Sydney sat up straight, leaving her arms and legs free. Her eyes narrowed. "I remember you."
"Do you?" Sark wondered if he should be reaching for the nearest deadly weapon.
"You killed Quan Li," said Sydney, pointing at Sark as if to illustrate her certainty. "You work for . . . the Man," she finished almost triumphantly. "Khasinau."
Sark tilted his head to one side, truly intrigued. "Your mother," he corrected her.
"My mother is dead," she retorted, quickly and coldly.
"Is she?"
The simplicity of the question seemed to throw her more than anything else. Her expression changed almost too quickly for him to follow, from bewilderment to fear to shock . . . and when she finally looked back at him, Sydney Bristow was utterly, heartwrenchingly lost.
"No," she whispered. Then, to Sark's horror, she crumpled to the floor and burst into tears.
For a while, he just sat perfectly still, hoping for the emotional storm to pass, but that felt callous even to him. So he stood up, only to be once again stymied for an appropriate response. Sark's grey-blue eyes darted around the hotel room as if seeking a set of written instructions. He couldn't remember a time when he'd felt more out of his depth than in that moment. No one ever cried around him.
Actually, plenty of people cried around him, but that was always more of a no! No, please, don't hurt me! sort of crying, which he suspected didn't count.
Slowly, warily, as if approaching a lioness with a leash, Sark knelt next to her.
Sydney, for her part, was barely aware that anyone else existed in the world, let alone in the room. Some old, practical part of herself knew that she was on the verge—if not past the verge—of hysteria, but her mind was racing with too much desperate speed to listen. Nothing made sense and she wanted to stop crying and ask Daddy what was going on, but he wasn't here, he was on a business trip—no, not business, he was in the CIA and he'd programmed her to be a spy and god she hated him for that but that was stupid because she didn't have parents, her family had died in a fire, that's what they had told her
and why wasn't Vaughn here to help her? but Vaughn didn't love her anymore, he didn't care, and why did she care? after all, she'd only met him yesterday, some annoyingly good-looking man while she sat there with her red hair and her swollen jaw, looking like Will's sister—where was Will? lying in the bathtub bleeding, trying to find out why Danny died well of course he died because of Sloane (Sloane the humanitarian?) and she wanted to have a mirror to see what she looked like because she couldn't remember her hair was blonde brown red white blue tangled and knotted as she lay in her cell (what cell?)
Vaughn, Vaughn, Vaughn, but he was married, why the hell was he married? she thought he was married to Alice but he wasn't but now he had given up on them and given up on her and oh god she'd seen her own funeral Emily's Danny's her mother's funeral you are admonished that's actually the word they use admonished to refrain from excessive displays of emotion
Sydney felt arms go around her, soft and tentative, but she did not react. She was too far gone.
this was stupid this was so so so stupid she thought the procedure (what procedure?) would make things better and now here she was all torn up with no place solid to set her feet and god what had she been thinking to try something like that (what?) it would have been better to remember it all whatever it all was but now it was fractured mashed crushed together Mom Dad Vaughn Sydney Simon Will Francie Charlie Danny Weiss Donovan Sark Dixon Lauren Kendall Cole Sloane Devlin Marshall Allison Lazarey Julia Julia Julia oh god make it stop make it stop
A pricking on the inside of her arm, and it all went black.