Thanks, Friend9810, for the review!! :) I'm always a little worried I missed the Sarkney boat by 4 or 5 years, so it's nice to see there are still fans out there!
Title by Lily Allen, quote by Fall Out Boy.
VI. Everything's Just Wonderful
I don't blame you for being you,
but you can't blame me for hating it.
When Sydney woke up, she was starving. Her stomach felt ready to consume her from the inside out if she didn't feed it immediately. Even that sensation faded, however, upon her realization that the dusky blue walls and hardwood floor of the room were not the accoutrements of a hotel. Judging by the light coming in from the window, it was sunset. That was about right—given the amount of time it would have taken to travel to Galway.
"That bastard," she growled, pushing away the covers.
Aside from grogginess left over from being drugged, nothing seemed terribly amiss. She did have a headache, the apparent result of a swollen, bruised spot on the back of her head, but she dismissed it without much thought. Injuries like that tended to happen when one's unconscious body was forcibly transported.
A single suitcase sat next to the cracked-open door, presumably full of the clothes Sark had purchased for her. God, how she missed having her own things around. Things that actually fit, things she actually liked. Well, honestly, most of that had been destroyed in the fire, but even as Julia Thorne she'd been able to accumulate a decent wardrobe. Now, nothing. Maybe after she beat the crap out of Sark for abducting her she would try to go shopping.
But first, food, her stomach insisted. She had to keep her priorities in order—and build up her strength, if she wanted to get out of here.
She left the room, and had to shake her head as she looked around from the landing of the stairs. Only Julian Sark would have a spacious two-story safehouse with impeccable decorating. It looked more like an expensive lodge than anything else. Operating on the assumption that the kitchen would be below, she went downstairs, scanning every inch of the interior for possible traps or surveillance. She saw none. The kitchen was easy to find.
When Sark walked in, he found her in the middle of consuming a massive sandwich that incorporated almost everything in the refrigerator as ingredients.
"Tell me, is there anything left?" he inquired, eyeing her meal.
Sydney harrumphed incoherently, swallowed, and took a breath. "Somehow I don't feel bad for eating the food of my kidnapper." She spat out the last word as an invective.
"Well, I could have left you unconscious in the hotel—or better yet, left you to the mercy of your little breakdown—but I didn't. I chose to bring you here. If that constitutes kidnapping, then so be it. I daresay you're better off here with me." He selected a bottle from the impressively large wine rack and opened a drawer for the corkscrew. "Care for a glass?"
"Sure," she muttered. She couldn't even count on alcohol to help her feel better about the situation. Years of drinking to blend in on ops had built up an absurdly high tolerance. You couldn't afford to be losing focus just because you had a few too many shots of vodka with Mr. Russian Mafia. It was great wine, though, not that she planned to admit that to Sark. Sydney returned to demolishing her monster of a sandwich. In retrospect, the addition of tuna might have been unwise.
She glanced up and realized that Sark was watching her. "Now what?" she snapped after swallowing her current mouthful.
"Aside from your . . . questionable eating habits, you seem to be all right. How do you manage that?" He sounded genuinely curious.
Sydney was tempted to be petty and refuse to answer. But, she realized with a sigh, it wasn't terribly likely that she'd have anyone else to talk to in the near future. One day she was going to track down the man who had performed the procedure, assuring her it was almost certain to work, and she was going to wring his neck. "I have to keep my thoughts in the present as much as possible. And when I do think about the past, I have to force myself to stop thinking about it as soon as I get confused. Which doesn't take much," she concluded bitterly.
"When you say 'confused' . . ."
She gestured futilely with her hands before coming up with an example. "Sometimes I still think you work for Sloane."
"Ah."
"Who are you working for?" Sydney asked, eyes narrowed. "Made any good connections in the world of international terrorism over the past two years?"
Sark raised an eyebrow. "Miss Bristow, I spent the last two years in prison."
"God, that's right." She ran a hand through her hair, clearly frustrated with herself. "Wait. How the hell did you get loose?"
He was silent long enough to let her know that it was deliberate, and that he had no intention of answering. The blue dress shirt, rolled up at the sleeves but still crisp and immaculate, made his eyes seem extra bright, muting the grey in them.
"Now then," said Sark, pouring himself a second glass of wine. "How do you propose we go about reconstructing your memories?"
Sydney polished off the last of her meal and licked a bit of mustard from her palm. "We shouldn't have to reconstruct anything, just re-organize what's already there. I don't think it'll be too difficult. I think most of the time it's my panic over not being able to remember things quickly that makes it impossible for me to remember anything at all."
"So there's nothing that has actually been lost."
"As far as I can tell. Like I said . . . more than anything, I think I'm just having glorified panic attacks."
"And you believe that once you sort out your confusion, the attacks will end?"
"Yes."
Sark rubbed his temple with two fingers. "Am I to understand that, aside from the unpleasant side effects, this procedure accomplished nothing?"
"Apparently, yes."
"Fantastic. You really thought someone could completely blot out just two years of your life?"
"It seemed reasonable at the time," was her clipped, steely response.
"Reasonable," he repeated. "Really. Were you partially lobotomized at some point in the last two years?"
"No," Sydney replied icily, looking him in the eye. "Just brainwashed. Or at least I would have been, if my father hadn't programmed me to be a spy when I was six years old. Now do you have any other stupid questions to ask, or are we through here?"
At a complete loss for words, Sark gestured that she was free to go. She was almost out of the kitchen when she turned back.
"Do you have any Tylenol or anything?"
"I believe so. Why?"
Without meaning to, she lifted a hand to the back of her head, not quite touching her hair. "I just . . . have a bit of a headache."
Something she couldn't understand passed over Sark's face. If she hadn't been so annoyed and eager to go, she might have pressed him for an explanation.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she snapped. "I just want to take something."
His mouth thinned into a tight line. "Try the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom."
"Thanks. And where are those papers? I'm not tired, so I'll read them over again for a few hours."
"On the table in the study. Down the hall and to the right," he replied. As Sydney walked away, he set aside the issue of her headache and tried to process what she'd just told him. When he'd found her alive, his first thought was that the CIA had faked her death to give her greater freedom in covert ops. But that wouldn't explain the state in which Sark had discovered her, or the fact that Michael Vaughn had remarried. His next thought was, of course, abduction. But how could she possibly have escaped that ordeal relatively unscathed?
This could be—and apparently was—the answer. Brainwashing, to make her identify with an enemy cause, or perhaps to make her believe that she was someone else entirely. But she had said that it didn't work . . . because of something her father had done when she was a child? All of a sudden, it hit him.
Project Christmas.
The reason Irina Derevko had been sent to America to marry Jack Bristow. A program aimed at identifying young children with the natural aptitude to become spies for the U.S. government. And what better child to use as a test of the fledgling program . . . than Sydney Bristow. To someone who had undergone the conditioning, brainwashing would be an empty threat. Assuming that prolonged physical and psychological torture can be considered an empty threat.
It was still speculation, he knew. But based on what Sydney had told him, he was willing to bet that he wasn't too far off the mark.
And maybe if he stopped putting his foot in his mouth and infuriating her, he would get the chance to ask her about it.
Assured of his solitude, Sark allowed himself a loud, exhausted sigh. He ran a hand over the short-cropped hair of which neither he nor Sydney was particularly fond. The long day—and all the days preceding it, since he found Sydney . . . and hell, even the two years before that, living in a cage . . . it was all wearing down on him, demanding that he collapse and sleep for a few months, at the very least.
First, though, he walked down the hall to the study. Technically, he had to walk past it to get to the master bedroom—he wasn't sure he liked having Sydney on another level of the house if she should have another panic attack, but had assumed she would prefer the distance. He stopped in the doorway of the study, relatively well-concealed in the shadows of the hallway. Sydney was facing away from him on the couch, illuminated by lamplight, head and shoulders bent over the documents. He had a feeling that if anyone could force their mind to cooperate just by reading, it would be her.
After a few more seconds, he turned away and headed farther down the hall.
"Good night, Sark."
He had to smile. Even in her current state, Bristow was unparalleled.
"Good night, Sydney."