Title by Rob Thomas, quote by Hafiz.
IX. Give Me the Meltdown
I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness,
the astonishing light of your own being.
It was nearly eight o'clock that night before they exchanged words again—and then only because Sark appeared unbidden in the doorway of Sydney's room.
"If I tell you I knew because you mentioned the name Julia Thorne the night I found you, will you stop sulking?"
Sydney opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, knowing that her instinctive I'm not sulking would only sound petulant. "I don't remember that," was her more guarded response. She set down the paper in her hands—she was reviewing a chronological list of courses she'd taken in college. Boring, but she made it into a challenge by trying to remember as many teachers and classmates as she could.
"Yes, well, I imagine that was one of the less remarkable parts of your evening," said Sark. "To me, however, it was intriguing. My contacts were able to provide information on Julia Thorne, including her recent disappearance. A picture of Julia was all I needed to confirm my suspicions."
"A picture," she repeated, eyes narrowed.
"You don't believe me."
"The Covenant is very thorough. As soon as I left a location, there was no trace of my having been there."
"Thorough, perhaps. But no system is without flaw, Sydney, as you should know." He couldn't tell if she accepted his explanation, but she seemed unwilling to pursue the topic further. That was fine by him. Sark was fairly certain that the less said about that picture, the better.
"Is that all?" she asked pointedly.
"No, actually." He lifted his chin slightly. "As promised, I've made dinner."
Sydney looked back down at the papers spread across the bed, clearly considering skipping the meal, then sighed and swung her legs around to place her feet on the hardwood floor. "Is it just me, or do we only interact when there's food involved?" she asked, pushing her arms through the sleeves of a sweater.
"It does seem to be a bit of a trend. Are you cold?"
"Huh?" Her eyes were wide with surprise. "No, I just . . . I'm fine." She hated it when Sark did that—acted concerned about her. He would probably have no qualms about putting a bullet through her head if she wasn't part of whatever he was planning. What the hell did he care if she was cold?
As she walked past him in the doorway, Sydney was unnerved by the warmth she could feel emanating from Sark's body. Somehow in her mind she'd always pictured him projecting, if anything, a chill. He also smelled very faintly of something she couldn't quite place, but she had no intention of pursuing that train of thought. "What's for dinner?" she asked him as they proceeded down the stairs.
"Linguine pescatore, and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc."
"Do you ever just drink beer?" Sydney wondered, half-smiling at the idea of him with a six-pack of Heineken.
"Not if I can possibly avoid it," he replied with predictable distaste.
They sat down at the dining room table, facing each other. Looking at her plate, she found herself grateful that he hadn't lit candles or anything like that. It would have just been too bizarre. Utilizing the logic that the faster she ate, the faster she could leave, Sydney picked up her fork and twirled some pasta around it. Vaughn had always been awful at that, she remembered with a sharp pang. He ended up with noodles hanging out of his mouth every time.
Across the table, Sark found himself grappling with the unfamiliar and unsettling desire to be someone else. Someone, more specifically, who was capable of making Sydney forget, even for a moment, what had happened to her. The nature of their arrangement was entirely too fragile to risk her contacting anyone on the outside, and he was acutely aware that providing emotional support was, to put it lightly, not one of his strengths.
Give him an actual job to do and he would accomplish it in record time. Give him a damaged, grieving Sydney Bristow and he was at a complete loss.
So really, perhaps all he actually needed was someone to shoot.
It wasn't as if he had any great talent for empathy, Sark mused, idly poking at bits of cod. Quite the opposite, in fact. But still . . . it was difficult to shake the feeling that something was utterly wrong with the universe if Sydney was not her usual self. He almost wanted her to escape, to make her way back to the CIA and Jack Bristow and Michael Vaughn, just to prove that the change in her was not irrevocable.
He felt as he imagined Professor Moriarty would feel upon receiving news of Sherlock Holmes' retirement. What would be the point in carrying on with one's activities, in continuing a life of crime, when there was no longer a worthy adversary able to make that life interesting?
But she would recover, he told himself, pushing aside his pessimism. She had to.
"This is delicious," Sydney commented—only a little grudgingly—as she took a sip of wine.
"I'm glad."
He looked, she thought, about as glad as her father would have looked while expressing the same sentiment.
Ugh. Her mind seemed to have a gift for prodding at the sorest of subjects when her guard was down. And judging by Sark's expression, it showed on her face.
"Is something wrong?"
Not the concerned act. Not again. "It's nothing," she lied briskly. But she knew Sark wasn't likely to accept the blatant falsehood, and talking about it seemed at least marginally better than thinking about it. "Just . . . my dad. I need to get him out of prison, but . . . I have no idea how," she admitted, eyes glued to the napkin she was twisting in her lap. "I don't even know how I'll be able to go back, when I—" Shit. Now she was getting all choked up.
"Sydney." Against her better judgment, she looked up. She hated the gentle look on his face, because it made her want to cry even more, and for Christ's sake, Julian Sark was not gentle. "Perhaps it would be best if you focused your energy on recuperating for now."
"But—"
"The rest can come later," he told her. She'd never realized his voice could be so soothing.
She pressed her lips together in an attempt at stoicism, but Sydney could feel her face crumpling. A warm tear shot down her cheek, and—without thinking, almost without meaning to at all—she reached across the table and grabbed Sark's hand, nearly knocking over her glass in the process.
His fingers held on tightly to hers. She found herself intensely grateful for the gesture of kindness she had no right to expect. Not from him.
Sark's eyes searched her face, but he said nothing. Sydney took deep, shaking breaths, wiping her face with her other hand, until she'd regained most of her composure. "Thank you," she whispered, looking at their hands joined in the middle of the table. She couldn't bear to look at his face just then. As she watched, Sark's thumb moved, stroking side to side against the back of her hand.
"It's all right, Sydney." His voice was low and intimate. It reminded Sydney of who she was.
She pulled back her hand.
"I don't suppose you know any good jokes." She forced her mouth into the shape of a smile, but another tear slid from her eye. Damn traitor.
"I'm afraid not. However," Sark continued, "I was wondering if you might oblige me with a story."
Sydney regarded him mutely, confused.
"This isn't the first time Cole and I have crossed paths. Years ago—when we were both working for your mother—he shared an interesting anecdote about his time at SD-6. He told me that you threatened to, I believe—"
"Break his kneecaps," she finished. The noise Sydney made was caught between a laugh and a sob, but her smile was genuine.
"Yes. Would you mind telling me how that came about, exactly?"
"I honestly don't remember," she said, looking away from the table with the same small grin on her face. "I'm sure he deserved it, but it was a long time ago."
"And doubtless he wasn't the only one vying for your affections," Sark baited her, half-serious.
She actually laughed a little at that. "Oh, yes, believe me, they were all just lining up for a chance with me, every man at SD-6."
I wouldn't blame them. The thought almost escaped his lips, but he didn't want to ruin Sydney's lightening mood. "I believe Mr. Flinkman harbored a certain degree of fondness for you," he told her instead.
"Marshall?" she said, expressing disbelief even as her eyes lit up at the memory of her old friend. "Nah."
"I would beg to differ," Sark countered. The corners of his mouth were curving up almost of their own accord.
"I don't know. Maybe a little crush. But now he's . . . god, I wonder if he's still with Carrie?"
"Carrie?"
"They just started going out before I—before I was taken."
"I could find out for you, if you like," he offered, and regretted it immediately as Sydney's guard came up again.
"It's all right," she said. "I'm sure I'll see them soon."
The message was clear. She didn't want him anywhere near the people she cared about, now or ever. Sark felt as if he'd just been physically pushed away.
This business of cheering someone up was a damn sight harder than he'd expected.
"Sark. What was your father like?"
Sydney saw the tendons in Sark's neck stand out as he tensed, swallowed. His eyes were wary.
"I'm just asking because I heard Cole mention that he died," she explained, watching his reaction carefully. "Were you . . . close?"
A quiet scoff vibrated Sark's throat. "Hardly."
"Oh." The single syllable was barely audible. She was quickly starting to regret ever broaching the topic.
He sighed so quietly she didn't even hear it; she just saw the slight fall of his shoulders as he exhaled. "My relationship with my father has always been . . . virtually nonexistent, to be blunt. He abandoned me when I was a child, whereupon I was sent to a boarding school in London. The vague memory I have of him, he was physically abusive. Shortly after my escape from federal custody, I learned of his assassination, and my subsequent inheritance."
She had no idea how to react when Sark said it so calmly, looking her dead in the eye with his most impenetrable expression.
"Do you have any idea who killed him?"
"Yes." His eyes caught the light and gleamed. "I have reason to believe it was the Covenant."
Sydney fought the urge to bolt from her chair, or be sick, or both. "Sark . . . who was your father?"
"Andrian Lazarey."
Shit, shit, shit.
"You're right," she said. She knew her heart wasn't actually lodged in her throat, but that was how it felt. "It was the Covenant."
"How can you be so certain?" His eyes were narrowed—maybe in thought, maybe in amusement. Hell, maybe he was about to rip out her throat.
"I . . . the assignment was almost given to me," Sydney explained, forcing her voice to be even. "It was, actually, but then something came up . . . I had to leave for Thailand, and they gave the job to someone else. A lower-level operative, I think."
Sark steepled his fingers and nodded in acknowledgment of her explanation. "I intend to find out who it was—if only to satisfy my own curiosity."
"Do you have any leads?"
"A few," he replied cagily, effectively terminating the discussion.
She cast about mentally for something else to talk about, and landed on an unlikely possibility. "So . . . this means I know your name," she realized, not without a touch of triumph. "Or at least the middle and end of it—if your last name is Lazarey, and your patronymic would be Andrianovich . . . what about Julian? Is that really your first name, or did you make it up?"
Sark just barely smiled. "It's real."
"Julian Andrianovich Lazarey," she said, trying out the entire name to see how it sounded. It was nice, she decided. A mouthful, compared to Sark, but nice.
"My admiration for your powers of deduction notwithstanding, I would rather you continue to call me Sark."
"How about Julian?"
Sydney had absolutely no idea why she asked. It was as if the words had slid from her tongue with no input whatsoever from conscious thought. She nervously tucked the left side of her hair behind her ear while she waited for him to finish chewing his forkful of linguini. Even as he did so, his eyes—almost entirely grey in this light—were dissecting her with a gaze so probingly intense it felt almost like a corporeal touch.
He swallowed, and sipped his wine. "All right," he finally replied. "If you wish."
The remainder of the meal passed in silence. Sydney felt too self-conscious to speak again, and she assumed Sark remained quiet for reasons of his own. When they were done eating—as she silently lamented being too full to eat more of the delicious sliced baguette—they cleared the table and took the dishes into the kitchen, still without a word between them. She rinsed the plates in the sink, and Sark loaded the dishwasher.
"Sark," she said, breaking the silence at last. He looked at her, his expression unsurprisingly blank. "I'm sorry about your father."
"There's no need to extend condolences."
"I know." She searched his young, beautiful face for a trace of the little boy for whom life had been so heart-wrenchingly cruel, but saw only the man he had grown up to become. "I think that's the reason I'm sorry," she murmured, and hoped he would understand.
"Sydney—" he began.
He didn't get any farther than that, because she kissed him.
Not a comforting kiss, not a peck on the cheek. No, there was no explaining this away. Her fingers had a firm grip on the back of Sark's head, and without exactly intending to Sydney had pushed him back against the counter. She hadn't expected his lips to be quite so soft, insofar as she'd expected anything, and good god, was that his tongue? Yes, it certainly was. The hands on her back were gentle, almost tentative.
The situation had quickly come to a head. Either she was going to release the moan building in her throat, or she was going to step back.
Sydney stepped back.
The look on Sark's face momentarily stunned her. She had never seen him display so much raw emotion—shock, lust, fascination, and was it . . . awe? Even as she tried to decipher the expression, he was doing his best to conceal it. At the moment, his best wasn't quite up to the task.
She had to go. She knew that. Because if she didn't, she would have to explain why she had kissed Julian Sark, and she had no fucking idea.
"Good night," she said.
"Good night, Sydney." It sounded a little bit like Sark was choking.
Goddamn kitchens, Sydney seethed, practically fleeing to the safety of her room. Every single time.
It wasn't until she was up the stairs and her door snapped shut that Sark finally released his death grip on the counter and took a deep, shuddering breath.