Title by AFI, quote by Matchbox Twenty. I apologize for the absurd delay; in my defense, it might have had something to do with being on the other side of the world.
To everyone who reviewed and has been so very patient — you make my life better. Thank you. :)
XVI. Of Greetings and Goodbyes
Yes, I am. I hope you think you beat me.
Hope I start talking crazy before you understand me. Are we through?
You think that I'm beneath you, but you like the things that I do.
Wrap 'em up and take 'em with you.
There were still some mornings when Sydney woke up and was disoriented, and it always took her a few muddled moments to piece things together. In bed, with Sark, naked. A little hung over. That was easy enough. It took her longer to remember that they were in Mexico now, but it all came back. Today was the day she would be returned to the CIA, and she tried very hard to believe that the turning of her stomach was only due to happy anticipation.
Ready or not . . . back to reality.
Such a simple realization, to change everything so drastically. She wouldn't wake Sark with a kiss today, though it had become almost a routine between them since Zurich. In fact, simply lying there in his arms felt strange and uncomfortable, as if it was the first time they'd slept together rather than . . . not.
She slid out of the bed and, after brief hesitation, went to take a shower. Standing under the spray of warm water, she heard the door handle jostle as he tried to enter, and she almost relented, almost unlocked the door and said sorry; come on in. Because she did want him to come in and make love to her against the pale blue tiled wall of the shower—and that was the point, really. As of today, he wasn't hers to want anymore.
No surprise there. That's what it had been all along: just a temporary arrangment, a short-lived dalliance with no promises and no future. As for what Sark had said last night . . . it meant nothing, she knew that. It was stupid to take a man at his word when he was under the influence of alcohol or orgasm, let alone both. The truly stupid thing was that she didn't know what she dreaded more—that he'd meant it, or that he hadn't. Especially when she knew that he hadn't, didn't, wouldn't, and probably couldn't. When she'd expressed her concern about complications, she hadn't come close to imagining something like this.
She watched foamy swirls of soap and shampoo circle the drain, eventually disappearing completely. It would have been easy to pretend there weren't tears stinging her eyes, but Sydney had a feeling she would be telling quite a few lies today. She didn't want to start by lying to herself.
Bringing clothes into the bathroom would have been a good idea, but it hadn't occurred to her at the time. Now there was nothing to do but face Sark wrapped in only a too-small hotel towel, which left her feeling distinctly and unpleasantly vulnerable to things like— well, like responding to him, when he kissed her as soon as she walked out. Despite her shower, his skin felt hot against hers. She clutched at the towel as if it were a life preserver rather than cheap terry cloth.
Her other hand, however, pressed tightly against against his scalp. His hair was longer than when he'd first found her. Softer.
When she broke away, she didn't make eye contact with him. He was already dressed, and she could feel him watching her as she rummaged through her suitcase and dug out a pair of jeans and a white tank top. What did he want, she wondered, trying to ignore the tightness in her throat. One last fuck before he collected his payment and made himself scarce?
By the time she actually looked at Sark, he was in the process of opening a nondescript pharmaceutical bottle. He placed two pills on the back of his tongue and swallowed. "Aspirin," he said by way of explanation. "After last night, I've developed quite a formidable headache." His smirk was half-hearted— tired and insincere—and she knew she wasn't being fair to him. Knew, deep down, that he didn't want to see her go.
She picked up one of their bottles of water and handed it over. "You shouldn't swallow them dry."
This time, the smirk was real. "Whatever you say, darling."
"How much time do we have?"
The question cut through all the meaningless things they might have said, exposing the morning for what it really was: a ticking clock, with every moment bringing them closer to the hour of separation. In a way, it was almost a relief to drop any pretense of normality—charitably assuming that Sydney Bristow and Julian Sark having an illicit affair could in any way be considered a standard of normalcy. Now even that was gone, dissipated like smoke.
"Not much longer," he replied, checking his watch. "Less than half an hour, in fact."
Her heart did not constrict. "Cutting it a little close."
"As I recall, there were more pressing matters at hand that prevented me from setting an alarm. For example, being—"
"Yes, I remember," Sydney interrupted hastily.
He stepped close again and put his hands on her waist. Even if she'd been trying to look away from his face, it would have been difficult. As it was, she was furtively examining his mouth and silently listing the reasons she shouldn't kiss him. "You should know," he began softly, interrupting her train of thought, "you were amazing. Before, I mean." His eyes stared straight into hers, a sharp, penetrating blue.
Unable to shake the feeling that they weren't just talking about last night, she forced a small smile. "You weren't so bad yourself."
They kissed then, and she hated every second, because it felt like goodbye. Still, she clung to him, committing every feeling to memory: the tightness of his arms around her, the scrape of his incisors across her lip, the taste of his mouth on her tongue. She hated it, and hoped it would never end.
"We should . . ." There was something gratifying in the way Sark trailed off at first, resting his forehead against hers, gaining control over his breathing. "We should make the necessary preparations now," he finished.
"Right. Is there anything else you're supposed to bring?" Her voice was surprisingly level.
"No, but I'll be going directly to the airport after the exchange. Everything needs to be packed and moved into the car."
She nodded, grasping immediately onto this method of diverting her thoughts with manual labor. "How about I pack bags and you load them up?"
Unfortunately, the work went quickly, and it wasn't long before they were standing alone in the room again. Sark picked up the pair of handcuffs from the bedside table and proffered them to Sydney. "I'm afraid you'll have to wear these, for the sake of appearances."
"Yeah." She smiled ruefully and took them from his hand. "I had a feeling these weren't just for before."
"I assure you, I'd much rather be putting them to use in that capacity." His eyes, now pale grey, glinted deviously in the mid-morning light. He rubbed at the faint pink circles around his wrists in what she suspected was an unconscious gesture. Unconscious or not, she still started blushing, and used the restraints as an excuse to duck her head while she fastened one of the cuffs. Sark locked the other for her, his fingers barely lingering on her skin.
"You should probably cuff my ankles, too," she recommended. It was what she would have done, if Sark were her prisoner.
His mouth thinned, but she had no idea what he was thinking. "When we're in the car," he decided. "There's no point in limiting your mobility just yet." He made another cursory check of the room to make sure that nothing was being left behind, and appeared satisfied.
"Sark."
He turned and regarded her silently.
A lump was forming in her throat, making her breath hitch. Sydney licked her lips and tried to think of what to say. She wanted, more than anything, to kiss him again, but something told her that this moment existed in a delicate state of balance, propped on the shaky supports of their mutual self-control. One more kiss would not end anywhere except the bed. Whatever had formed between them had to end, and it had to end right now.
"We should go now." Despite her best efforts, her voice was husky and jagged.
Sark swallowed, nodded once, and moved to hold the door for her. They were soon en route to the Sonora Desert.
"What's the protocol for the meeting?" she asked about five minutes into the drive. All the things left unsaid between them were weighing on her mind, and she had no intention of continuing all the way to the exchange site like this.
"It's a straightforward exchange, really. The CIA team may consist of only three agents in a single van." He glanced at her before continuing, the briefest flash of blue-grey. "In compliance with my demands, one of those agents will be Jack Bristow."
Against all logic, the only thing she could think of was that it wasn't fair. Sark shouldn't be doing something like this for her. Not now, at the end, and not when she would never be able to thank him properly, or possibly repay the priceless gift he'd tossed her way. Her father . . . free . . . it was almost more than she could wrap her mind around, after so many hours of trying to devise a workable plan to secure his release. To be involved in this exchange, he would have to be restored to all his former security clearance, and once Langley reinstated an agent as skilled as Jack Bristow, they'd be reluctant to put him right back in jail.
"Sark . . ."
"There's no need to thank me. Superfluous demands are a time-honored method of concealing one's true agenda. You know that."
It shouldn't have stung, but it did. "And that's all it was?" she asked, twisting in her seat to watch him carefully.
"The ankle restraints are on the floorboard. You should put them on before we reach the exchange site."
"Fine," she snapped. "I will." Sydney turned back to face her window, not particularly caring if she was being petulant. She was scared and conflicted and not remotely in the mood to be toyed with. Would it kill him, just this once, to give her a straight answer? To let her know if he'd ever really been on her side?
Perhaps he didn't even possess enough empathy to understand what she was going through, but her turmoil bubbled close to the surface. The irony of it all was that if her memories had actually been erased, returning to the CIA would have been the most natural course of action in the world. There would have been no second thoughts, because she wouldn't remember those years as Julia Thorne—not quite an agent as she'd been before, but hardly the Covenant's puppet. For a few cruel hours, she might even have believed that she could still go home to a Michael Vaughn who loved her, a world where things made sense.
Knowing brought with it a convoluted string of choices. She wasn't even sure of the ones she'd already made, let alone the ones still facing her. Would it even be possible to reintegrate into her old life, knowing what she knew, surrounded on all sides by tactile proof of what she had lost?
In the far corner of her peripheral vision, she thought she saw Sark's shoulder rise and fall, as if with a sigh.
"Sydney." He was still watching the road, but his voice was intimate in its soft intensity. "There are some things which I truly believe to be beyond your capabilities. After the past two weeks, however, I consider this a situation you can most certainly handle."
It slipped out before she could think. "The past two weeks, I had you."
If he reacted—if his features betrayed even the slightest hint of what he was feeling—she saw no evidence of it. Driving one-handed, he veered off the road into the open desert, and dust swirled around the entire car before settling into a wake of whirling sand behind them.
Well, at least the lover who'd tried to kill her several times in the past had faith in her. That had to count for something.
"Thanks," she murmured, knowing he would hear.
The corner of his mouth barely quirked. They passed the rest of the drive in relatively companionable silence.
When the van came into sight, far in the distance across the utterly flat desert, butterflies didn't begin to describe the feeling in Sydney's stomach. Her bound hands tightened on her knees, and breathing suddenly became a conscious, labored process. This was it, right now, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she was unprepared, as if she had forgotten something important and needed to go back and get it before any of this could happen.
The air conditioning in the rental car wasn't up to the challenge of beating the desert heat; a bead of sweat trickled from her hairline down her neck. As they approached, she saw the van's back doors open. Two small, indistinguishable figures emerged, and a third came out of the driver's side door.
Her father was probably one of the two who'd been in the back, but she couldn't tell which until they were about sixty yards away and she realized, with a harsh pang in her chest, that she recognized all three. Dixon stood in the middle, flanked on either side by her father and Kendall.
Sark stopped the car about thirty feet away. The sound of the parking brake made Sydney jump, and they both stared wordlessly at each other.
Finally, one side of his mouth tugged up in a smirk. "You know, Sydney . . . when I said 'good luck' . . . I really wasn't mocking you."
A smile spread across her face even as her eyes filled with tears. "Yeah. I know."
He nodded slightly, almost to himself, as if something had been resolved. Perhaps, for him, it had. "Shall we?"
"Let's go," she said, willing her voice not to shake.
He got out of the car, gun drawn, and circled around to her side to let her out. The ankle cuffs impeded her progress considerably, and she couldn't suppress an irrational sense of betrayal regarding the gun Sark kept leveled squarely at her head as they approached the van. A hot wind blew her hair into her eyes, but she could still see the three figures waiting for her. The closer she got, the more details became clear: Dixon's blazing dark eyes and clenched fists; her father's stoicism marred by a barely perceptible look of longing for his lost daughter; the squinting, speculative expression on Kendall's face.
"Gentlemen," Sark called out, and she barely controlled her surprise. It was a tone she'd heard dozens of times from him, before, and she had never realized that it wasn't the way he'd spoken to her over the last month. Until now. "I trust you've brought the package."
Dixon never averted his contemptuous glare from Sark's face. It was Kendall who reached into the van and withdrew a nondescript metal briefcase.
"Bring it to me," instructed Sark. "Set it down on the ground next to Miss Bristow."
At a nod from Dixon, Kendall did so. His crusty façade cracked for a moment as he looked Sydney in the eye, and she nodded once to indicate that she was all right. She didn't particularly feel all right, but that wasn't exactly the issue at hand. As Kendall retreated back to the others, she wondered what the hell could be in the briefcase. She also wondered if anyone would notice that Sark's restraining hand on her shoulder pressed gently into her skin, just once.
He had to holster his gun to take off the restraints, so he ducked behind Sydney, preventing the CIA agents from trying to shoot him. The jaws of all three men visibly tightened as Sark's arms circled around her body to remove the handcuffs. She tried not to lean into him.
When all her limbs were unfettered, Sark pointed the gun at her head once again. "Miss Bristow, if you would be so kind."
She passed him the case, which was surprisingly heavy, without looking at him. She didn't want to remember him like this; not if she could help it.
"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," he said more loudly—ostensibly to the others. As he lowered his gun, the barrel trailed ever-so-lightly down her spine, and then she heard his footsteps behind her, receding toward the car. This was it. No goodbye, no regret. No possibilities.
I must say— that was rather anticlimactic.
For a moment, she was frozen. Then she started walking. She wanted to run, but was shaking too hard. She still closed the distance quickly.
"Dad," she said, her voice breaking, as she walked straight into his arms.
Jack held her tightly, almost painfully, with all his strength— with all the love and protection she'd never been willing to admit she needed. It had been so easy to take it for granted, even to resent it, when she had assumed he would always be there. "Sydney," he muttered in a tight, choked voice. That was all it took for her tears to overflow, and she let them fall, cocooned in her father's embrace. She buried her face in his shoulder and held on.
When she finally brought herself to let go, she was quickly swept into a fierce hug by Dixon. Over his shoulder, Kendall shot her the sardonic, affectionate half-smile she'd become accustomed to in her years as Julia Thorne. Despite the tears in her eyes, she managed to smile back.
By the time she looked back, across the dry plains of the Sonora Desert, Sark was long gone.
x x
Sydney was able to answer most of their questions honestly, simply because they had no inkling of what had actually happened. No, Sark hadn't hurt her. No, he hadn't tried to coerce secrets from her. No, she had no idea what he was planning to do next. Had she gathered any useful intelligence regarding possible weaknesses? That one almost made her laugh. Under the assumption that 'my legs' was not an appropriate response, she told them no.
No, she had no idea where he had been holding her prisoner. That lie stuck a little in her throat, but no one seemed to notice.
They took her to a CIA safehouse just outside of LA. Just a precaution, Dixon explained, for the first night. Apparently there was an empty apartment next door to Agent Weiss, set up with all the necessities, if that was all right with her. She assured them it was. The thought of Weiss was a surprisingly pleasant one—though it embarrassed her to admit it, she'd forgotten to count him among the friends she could still depend on. She would have bet money on the fact that his good-natured affability had not changed one iota while she was gone.
"I must say, Sydney, I'm surprised to see you in such good shape," Kendall commented as their group of four entered the safehouse, her three escorts presenting identification to the carefully concealed armed guards. "After we got that ransom video, I didn't know what to expect."
The chill in her body seemed to center around her lungs, and she drew breath with care. "What video?"
Her father's poker face was firmly in place, but Dixon's anger and Kendall's discomfort were easier to read. "I have it here," said Kendall, drawing a thin, clear CD case from his briefcase and brandishing it in her direction. "If you want to see it, you can. You've got the clearance."
Meaning what? Were there parts of this situation she didn't have the clearance to know about? Sydney pushed aside the thought and took the case.
"I don't have a laptop with me. You'll have to use the DVD player."
"O . . . Okay," she replied, slowly. She didn't like or understand the tension in the room, even though her own nervousness contributed to it. Setting up the DVD was no difficulty—she suppressed memories of doing the same in his safehouse—and it wasn't long before her own image appeared on the screen.
She managed not to gasp. She had forgotten how wretched she'd looked in the beginning, but here was a solid reminder. Her unconscious body was slumped on a wooden chair in a dark, nondescript room. She was too pale, too thin, with dark circles under her closed eyes. Sark's voice jolted her forcibly out of her reverie, and she almost looked around the room for its source before realizing that he existed only in the video.
"Greetings. I trust you're all doing well in my absence— better, at least, than Agent Bristow. It seems I've stumbled upon quite the bargaining chip, wouldn't you agree?" The camera wasn't quite steady, proof that it was handheld rather than resting on a tripod. "If you're interested in keeping Miss Bristow relatively intact, I would advise you to provide a secure means for me to contact you. I will be in touch soon thereafter with a list of my demands."
"If you're finding yourselves tempted to take any sort of violent action," he continued, "I would advise against it. You see . . ." His foot lashed out, toppling the chair and Sydney with it. Her head struck the concrete floor with an unpleasant sound. ". . . the safety of your lost agent depends on your cooperation."
From her safe perch on an ottoman, Sydney reflexively raised a hand to the back of her head. The bruise there had stopped hurting a long time ago, but she remembered waking up with it throbbing. She remembered the look on Sark's face when she'd asked for Tylenol—a look she now knew was something like guilt.
"I trust I'll be hearing from you shortly," said Sark, and the screen went black.
"Well. That explains the headache," she muttered weakly, because she knew they were waiting for her reaction.
"Syd—"
"I'm fine, Dixon. I promise." She turned to face her old parter, looking right at him without subterfuge. She'd missed his dark, penetrating eyes so many times in her years with the Covenant, along with the kindness she knew lay underneath. "I can only assume he was trying to make a point, because he never laid a hand on me." That, of course, was such an immense lie that she half-expected her nose to grow. "Whatever he was after, it didn't involve hurting me."
"Well, you'll be fully debriefed in the morning," Kendall interjected. "We'll let you rest for now."
"Sydney." She immediately turned her attention to her father, who had been silent all this time. He hesitated. "There's a spare bedroom, just down the hall from yours. I'd like to stay here, if you don't mind."
She smiled broadly. Jack Bristow, asking for permission? "That would be great," she agreed, nodding.
"See you in the morning, Syd," said Dixon. "We'll send someone to bring you both to the Rotunda. And Syd?"
"Yeah?"
When Dixon smiled, all the anger and tension accumulated in his face dissolved as if it had never been. "It's good to have you back."
"Good to be back," she replied, without having to think about it.
After all, it was the truth.
x x
Mikhail Basirov's shredded corpse didn't look any less grisly in photograph form. If anything, in fact, the relatively poor quality of Sark's cell phone camera had made it look worse. The blood was a more garish red, the skin more pallid and chalky. Beneath the image was the laconic text message that had accompanied it: give me five days.
"And we gave you five days," said McKenas Cole. "Out of the goodness of our hearts. And here you are." He was standing by the window of the Covenant's London headquarters, champagne glass in hand, and as he spoke he turned back to look at Sark.
"You know, Julian — we're not too happy about what you did to Basirov. The guy had a lousy sense of humor, but still, a valuable asset's a valuable asset."
Sark barely raised an eyebrow at this. "Then I suppose you shouldn't have sent him to kill me."
"Yeah, well, 20/20 hindsight and all that," Cole acknowledged, gesturing with his fingers as if waving the argument away. "You sure did a number on ol' Bassy. Looked like he swallowed a live grenade for breakfast. And it was nothing personal, you know. We just got a little concerned about your wandering the globe all footloose and fancy-free. When you said two weeks until the exchange, we figured you'd be hangin' out in the ol' Galway safehouse."
"Circumstances changed. I was under the impression that you were interested in results, not my methods."
"Hey, no complaints here, brother-man. You had my double-thumbs-up from the get-go, and I hear the boss is real happy with that artefact you got for us. Looks to me like you're gonna fit in here just fine. Still— you didn't win lots of popularity points by using the Chosen One as a bargaining chip."
"Once your precious 'Julia Thorne' rejected her false identity, Sydney Bristow was of no further use to you," Sark reasoned unconcernedly. It surprised him that he could say her name so casually, with such nonchalance, but that was as it should be. "I, on the other hand, am prepared to offer you my full cooperation, should you decide to put an end to the assassination attempts. I assure you, I'm far more valuable to you alive."
"No doubt! I've got a good feeling about you, Julian. I think it's the hair." He drained the champagne glass and set it down on the table between them. Cole sat in the chair across from Sark and a faint flash of guile passed over his otherwise amicable expression. "We are still gonna need that eight hundred million."
"Naturally."
"Okay then! Great!" Cole clapped his hands and rubbed them together briskly. "Miss Reed!" After a brief moment of confusion, Sark realized that he was not being directly addressed, by which time Cole was talking to him again. "I'm afraid the position we offered you before is no longer a solo job, per se," he said, chattering so quickly that some of the words ran together. "The big boss'll be glad to have you, but I'm afraid it's half or nothing."
"Meaning . . .?"
"There you are! Julian, you and Miss Reed here are gonna be working together to head the North American cell, so play nice and get along!"
Sark stood up and turned to see the new presence in the room— and found himself staring into a startlingly familiar face. The same long blond hair, the same incongruous dark eyebrows. What he'd taken for a look of disdain on the surveillance footage seemed to be an expression perpetually caught between a frown and a pout. The corners of that pouting mouth turned up in a small, predatory smile. "Mr. Sark."
"A pleasure," he murmured, and reached out to shake the hand of his father's killer.