Erasing Verona
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sark/Sydney
Summary: Sitting inside a dark and empty linen closet, there was only a sliver of light penetrating the tiniest of cracks, and for Sark all of that was Sydney.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot Productions.
Notes: Written for the Sark Writing Challenge at SD-1.net. The story moves backwards and forwards through time, and the date headings are relative to the section preceding it (i.e. A-present day, B-2 days earlier, C-5 days earlier. C takes place 7 days before A).
***
It’d been some time since Jack had been on a private jet. The CIA was the moralist’s route, but it would never lead to the high life. Jack decided as he fingered the cool cream leather of his armrest-a surprisingly pristine choice for an ex-assassin-that he didn’t care for either.
The last time he saw Sydney was in New York City. By then she’d been missing for two months, but hiding in plain sight. Jack had spent those long, agonizing days reliving his worst nightmare, on a sightless search that turned no leads. He hadn’t considered the possibility that she wasn’t alive. He hadn’t known if he could survive her funeral again.
But then one day she’d just appeared to him; she called him "Daddy" and hugged him, and it was like she’d never left. He’d been taking a brisk walk and found himself in a small flea market, wondered about the appeal of those little trinkets Sydney liked to decorate her home with. He lifted one, tested its weight. What was once only a lump of clay and sand he now saw as innately colorful and strong, but ultimately fragile. He’d learnt that when he dropped it to the ground, and it shattered into a thousand pieces like his heart had when he learnt that Sydney was missing again. But she wasn’t; she was right in front of him.
I missed you, Daddy. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.
Didn’t she know she could tell him anything? That he would never abandon her, never make the same mistakes he’d made when she was a child?
I didn’t want my decision to leave to affect you. When it all comes out… my… betrayal… I don’t want it to ruin everything you’ve worked for.
Any decision she made would always affect him. That’s what he’d learnt while regaining his daughter’s love and trust-what it meant to be family.
I love him, Daddy. I know you don’t understand, or maybe you do-too much. But this is different. He makes me happy. It’s been a long time since I was happy.
And out of the corner of his eye he saw a blonde man with sharp eyes standing casually against the wall. This was the man who had manipulated his daughter and used her feelings as a weapon, Jack thought with simmering rage; this was the man who had taken her away. This was the man who would one day hurt her beyond repair.
Sark was, after all, raised by the most deceitful woman to ever live.
Jack knew he should’ve held his anger, at least until he and Sydney were alone, but he didn’t know how long she would stay. And he had to at least try to break the spell that Sark had cast. In the end his fear was not unwarranted-she’d interpreted his attempts as another example of his lack of faith in her, and then she’d been lost to him again.
It’d felt like he’d been standing still in that market rush for nine months until one morning he’d received a coded message and a jet. Jack knew instinctively that this was his last chance. He wasn’t sure for what.
***
He hadn’t known that dark alleyways existed in Florence at midday, but Jack supposed that Sark had a knack for that.
"Jack."
He frowned at the younger man’s use of his given name. Sark had disappeared from under the radar with Sydney, but Jack hadn’t forgotten his infuriatingly polite mercenary persona. This man standing before him, half hidden in the shadows, had the same glittering cold eyes, the same diamond-hard shell, but something central to him had changed or been taken away. It made Jack uneasy, facing an opponent who wasn’t as he remembered.
"What do you want, Mr. Sark?"
Sark smiled suddenly at the question as if it amused him, teeth gleaming in the dark, but he didn’t reply. "I trust your trip was most comfortable. I sent my favorite jet."
Trepidation trickled down Jack’s spine. "Where is my daughter?"
"She is safe," and all Jack could hear was the unspoken, "for now." Sark stepped closer and Jack was surprised to see that he had aged drastically in the nine months that had passed.
"You know, Jack," Sark said conversationally, "I’ve always admired your infallible judgment of character. It’s a shame you didn’t pass that onto your daughter. She would’ve made a formidable spy if not for that one weakness." Sark paused, as if allowing a heavy moment for the words to sink their claws into Jack’s mind. "And I have learnt that weaknesses inevitably-sooner or later-lead to death."
Jack didn’t allow Sark another breath before he shoved him against the brick wall. "You should know better than to threaten my daughter, Mr. Sark," he hissed. "I do not take that lightly."
"Call it a friendly warning," Sark said, unruffled by the arm pressing hard against his throat. "After all, what good is a death if there is no one around to watch?"
"Listen to me, you sick son of a bitch. If you even think about touching one hair-"
And then suddenly Jack was standing back in the middle of the alleyway, his arms resting at his sides. Sark, standing a few feet away, was as composed as ever. The only indication that the last few minutes had taken place was the coiled tension in Jack’s chest and arms and Sark’s parting words as he walked further into the shadows.
"I believe it is a little late for that, Jack."
***
She was standing the peak of a grassy hill behind the house. Wisps of her hair-escaping the red printed scarf holding it in place-shone in the sunlight. After seeing Sark Jack had expected another woman, someone frightened and emotionally drained, someone in need of a savior. He didn’t expect this; he didn’t expect to see Sydney peacefully watching the stillness of the trees, one hand resting low on her belly.
Dread was dancing along his throat.
"Dad!" She waved and started a light jog to meet him at the bottom of the hill, and even from a distance he could make out the rosy glow of her cheeks. "Thank you for coming," she said.
"Of course," Jack said, then hesitantly, "I’ll always be here when you need me, sweetheart. You only need to ask."
"I have something to tell you," she said eagerly. "But let’s go inside first. You must be tired from the flight." The flight on a plane belonging to a man who would destroy the house that Jack built.
"I’m fine," he said, but the short tone betrayed his tension. "Tell me your news."
Sydney’s eyes lit up and her smile, he decided with a lead-filled stomach, was one of true happiness. Jack had a feeling he didn’t want to know what she was going to say, didn’t want a confirmation of what he already suspected.
"I’m pregnant. Julian and I are going to have a baby." She paused with an impish grin. "And you’re going to be promoted to grandfather. Sounds strange, huh?" She waited, but he gave no response. "Dad?" Sydney asked, uncertainty lacing her features for the first time since he saw her. "Are you still upset because of last time?"
Jack looked at his daughter’s face, the hope and happiness shining through the doubt. It was always he who was sent to quash her dreams. "I know you don’t want to hear this, Sydney, but it’s important that you do. Sark is not the man you think he is. I don’t know what he plans to achieve, but I do know that as long as you are in his presence, you… and your child are in grave danger."
Sydney didn’t respond for a moment, and Jack felt the fingers of desperation tickle at the flesh beneath his skin. Her silence was not a promising sign.
"Can’t you just be happy for me?"
"This is not about happiness, Sydney; it’s about your life! I know you don’t want to believe it, but Sark came to see me when I first arrived. He wants me to be here to watch you die. Is this the man you want to spend the rest of your life with? The one you want to raise your child? He is a murderer; he destroys lives for sport. You need to leave before he does it to you."
"No," Sydney said softly, but her head was shaking with assurance. "He’d never do that to me. Julian loves me, and I love him. This child will be born of love. Nothing will change that." She turned to look at the small cottage behind them, and Jack remembered that her dream had been to live a life free of the CIA, free of the burdens the world of espionage had placed upon her. Sark had interpreted that well, and Jack knew that Sydney’s unshakable faith would be the downfall of her yet.
"I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Dad, but that couldn’t have been Julian. It wouldn’t be the first time that somebody was duplicated. Whoever you saw must be part of something bigger than the three of us."
It was a convincing argument, but Jack knew firsthand the workings of love and denial. Together they were seamless, with only enough room for a knife to slide through. Jack knew this. He could not let Sydney learn it too.
"Get some rest, Sydney," he said finally. "I shouldn’t have ruined this for you. Sleep, and I’ll be back when you wake up."
"Where are you going?" Sydney asked his retreating back.
"I have a business matter to take care of." He smiled reassuringly. "Trust me. Everything will be better when you wake up."
***
Better was something subject to debate, but as he walked purposefully into the office Sark was sitting in, Jack only had his own definition to fall back on.
"Agent Bristow." Sark rose from his seat, a trademark smirk firmly in place. "This is a… pleasant surprise. I must admit, I wasn’t expecting you to leave Sydney’s side so soon."
"You may think you’re invincible, Mr. Sark," Jack said, ignoring the outstretched hand, "you may think that you can court danger and leave unscathed. But you can’t." There was a pistol in his pocket, the grooves of metal warmed by his clenched hand. "You should’ve known that any threat on my daughter’s life would guarantee your death."
And then he took the gun out of his pocket and shot Sark straight through the heart.
If Jack had waited one more moment, taken a closer look at the blonde man with his clear eyes, seen the intense fear and utter lack of comprehension, Jack would’ve realized that something was very, very wrong. But he didn’t wait. And he hadn’t seen the open door or the person dart inside. He hadn’t seen the painting of a woman in a cornfield hanging on the wall, hadn’t seen the unadulterated anguish in Sark’s eyes, hadn’t seen Sydney run into the room at the very last second and stop in front of the gun. All he saw was the trajectory of a bullet, the pathway slicing through the air before it hit Sydney, and she was falling, her arms folded together as if cradling a baby. And then he was falling too, killed by a howling man with clear eyes and clear tears.
But in his last moments, before his body separated from his soul, Jack could only see the glittery cold eyes of the man in the alleyway.
Eleven months earlier
The moonlight streaming into the room came into view first, and then the feeling of his body wrapped around her, their legs so entangled that she couldn’t even tell which were hers and which were his. He was awake, of course. She instinctively knew this. In the entire time they’d been together, Sydney had never woken first.
"Do you ever sleep?" Her voice was like low, husky and rumpled like the sheets they lay on.
"Sleep is for mere mortals," he replied with a smirk that she could feel against the back of her shoulder, and Sydney let out an annoyed grunt that only served to further amuse him. She should’ve expected an answer like that.
"I can’t do this anymore; this can’t work with us on opposite sides of the law." The words left her mouth before she could stop them, and she cringed inwardly at how abrupt and callous and how intentionally hurtful they sounded.
Sark’s body tensed imperceptibly behind her, the motion so small that she would have missed it if not for the fact that she’d spent more than four years studying his every move. "We’ve handled it quite well so far," he said lightly. "I don’t see why this has to change."
Twisting around in his arms, Sydney leaned back a fraction so that she could see his face. "I’m leaving the CIA. I’m not needed there anymore. It’s not where I belong." She smiled wryly. "What I’m afraid of most, though, is telling my father. About us."
Sark smirked. "He most likely will not be too pleased."
"Probably not."
They lay in a comfortable silence for a moment more before Sydney reluctantly pulled away. "I should go. It’s late, and I think there were more tails on me today."
She was fully dressed and almost at his bedroom door when he appeared next to her, pulling her fully clothed body flush against his naked one. Sydney found it incredibly erotic, and she knew from the slightly upturned lips that he could probably read her exact thoughts.
"Why, Mr. Sark," she purred with a heavy-lidded gaze and slow smile. "I’d say you’re happy to see me, but I wouldn’t put it past you to have a gun strapped in down there."
"I don’t need any extra weapons," he whispered hotly into her ear, and then pulled back enough for her to see his first unguarded smile of the night. His eyes were dark but his hand stroking her cheek was warm, and when he kissed her his lips were burning, still and sweet.
Sydney let her eyes drift close and a smile settle on her lips, and then she rested her forehead against his. His warm breath fanned over the planes of her face and she knew without a doubt that she’d never been happier than at that very moment.
"When we leave this place, leave behind the loyalties and debts that were not of our choosing, there will be something new waiting for us. And nobody will ever be able to take that, or this, away. Sydney," he said, "you should know that I will always do everything in my power to keep you safe."
"I know," she said simply, her lips brushing against his lightly as she spoke. "I think, perhaps, I’ve always known."
She disentangled herself from him then, became a separate entity with her own arms and legs and breath, but even though they were no longer touching she could feel some part of him still with her.
"Sydney," Sark’s eyes grew somber, allowing her to see their bottomless depths. "I don’t sleep because I know-more than anyone-that this life is fleeting. That any moment here could be my last, and sleep would be wasteful." He paused, and she could see him weighing his next words. "I only stay awake when I’m with you."
Sometimes, when he said things like that, she had no words.
"Goodnight, Sydney."
***
To him, she was light.
Sitting inside a dark and empty linen closet, there was only a sliver of light penetrating the tiniest of cracks, and for Sark all of that was Sydney.
He watched as she stripped off her clothes; her body still warm from a lover’s embrace. She didn’t let on as she slid into a cotton jersey-it was his, he recognized faintly-but Sark knew immediately that she could feel another presence there. He could see the stiffening of her spine, smell the fear and adrenalin coat the walls of her veins; he could feel her pulse quicken as if it were beating beneath his fingertips.
It’d been some time now, but none of that had changed.
He waited as she checked the room carefully, then the windows and the doors, knowing that she would find no one there. It wasn’t until she was asleep, much later, that he climbed out of the closet, his steps silent as they padded across the room to her bedside.
She didn’t look different. There were the same pink lips that made his heart threaten to stop, and the same habit of sighing softly in her sleep. And her skin, he knew, would be smooth and silky to his touch.
He remembered this night. It was branded on his memory like a hot mark of life, a small token that he had once lived. He remembered how he had told her of his feelings, not well, in not so many words, and how she had understood. He didn’t remember what those feelings were though. The memory played through his mind, flashing with color and vibrancy, but at times it grew dull. And he was no longer the leading man, but an offside character who could do nothing but wait for the events to unfold.
He couldn’t be sure, but he had loved her once, ran with her in Aphrodite’s playground. The feelings coursing through him now were different, but almost the same. They were indefinable and he did not want to trace the battered emotions with the tip of a rusty dagger.
Sark ran a finger over the softness of her lips, re-learnt their texture and shape, and while lost in thought she’d grabbed his wrist in a death grip and pinned him to the ground with her own body weight. He stiffened, his entire length frozen by their sudden contact, and he was lost in the crushed velvet brown eyes that felt like they were reaching deep into his soul.
It was the thought that brought him back. He knew that it couldn’t possibly be true.
"Julian," she whispered in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"Sydney," he said, but the role of the man she loved was harder to slip into than he’d imagined. It had been too long, he decided. "You shouldn’t leave the CIA… and it’d be best if we didn’t see each other anymore."
Her eyes narrowed, and she stumbled away from the man who was not her lover, but bore an uncanny resemblance to him. Sark wondered what it was that gave him away, what caused her to realize and stare at him with distrustful eyes. Was his voice different, etched by blood and betrayal? Was it his lips, his hair, the pads of his thumbs as they drew circles on her arms? Were the circles different; were his eyes opaque and creased with age and desperation? What made her stumble upon the truth and recoil?
A part of him rejoiced at the fact, let the relief sweep the bitterness into his steel-lined stomach. The other part of him, weaker and quiet now, wept for what he had lost. The line cut inside him had been cleaned, but the open wound left him vulnerable to infection. He didn’t want to risk it, didn’t want to trace it with that rusty dagger hidden deep inside his pocket and pressed against his thigh. The scars had yet to fade.
"Who are you?" she asked, and in the time he had struggled with his internal battle she had retrieved her gun and steadied it at his heart. "What do you want from me?"
"Sydney, you must listen to me," he said. "There are people who will hurt you, even if they don’t want to… even if they care. I can’t save you this time. I can’t keep you safe. You need to be able to save yourself."
"I don’t know who you are, but you can’t fool me," Sydney began after a moment, but he could already tell from her fiery expression that she didn’t believe him. He should’ve expected as much. "You are not Sark, no matter how much you look like him and act like him, or how well you know our private conversa-"
Time was running short, and for them there was nothing more to be said. He kissed her then, ignored the gun trapped between their bodies. He kissed her like he had before she left his home earlier that night, but this time it wasn’t still and sweet, this time it was laced with a violent desperation that spiraled back to his conscious, but it didn’t matter because it’d all been ruined anyway.
He had loved this woman once. There was a moment back in time-long passed now-that she was his, back before he remembered that he was beyond saving, back before he lost her forever, back before he sent her to her watery grave. He was a monster who had loved this woman, and for a moment now he could pretend that she wasn’t really gone.
When she pulled away her lips were swollen, denial was glazed across her eyes and her breath came in hard pants. She stumbled back, lifted the gun and pulled the trigger-
-but he wasn’t there.
From beside her he watched, invisible, as she searched for the bullet still lodged in his unfeeling heart.
Seeking out Sydney had been selfish and cruel on his part. It’d taken him some time to admit that who he’d been with her was somebody, somebody real and the closest he’d ever been to whole. He’d come here and tried to recapture that, salvage the part of him that was dying now; he’d wanted to capture a fragment of their past, but instead all he’d achieved was tainting her future.
Four years earlier
There were guards in the hallway. Lots of guards, and they all carried enormous ready-to-use guns. A reasonable man would’ve choked with fear and died. A man of above average courage and skill would’ve required many high-tech gadgets and sufficient back up to see him through.
Outside, Mr. Sark scaled the building alone with ease. He liked the feeling of high-altitude wind in his hair. It reminded him of the danger. It made him feel alive.
The glass panel of the office-located on the 23rd level-dislodged easily, as Sark had expected. In his experience men with all the hair on his head were lacking it elsewhere, and Emmanuel Fuentes was no exception. He did, however, Sark mused, have exceptional taste. The office had a minimalist but undeniably classy feel about it. It reminded Sark of his own "home."
Within seconds he opened the safe behind a cleverly placed bookshelf. Luckily he’d known about the secret button located on the faux encyclopedia-volume E for ethics. Unluckily, the Rambaldi artifact he was to collect was absent, the interior of the safe uncomfortably bare.
"Sydney Bristow," he muttered to himself. He was rarely beaten, but on the oddest of occasions it was always her.
"Not quite."
Sark turned to see a figure sitting on the lounge in the corner. Half-covered in darkness as he was, Sark knew the man must’ve come in after he arrived. When the man stepped forward Sark noticed two things.
The first: he was holding the bronze coin that was in some indirect way related to Rambaldi the Prophet. Sark filed away the information-he would need to retrieve the object as soon as he resolved the more imminent issue.
The second and said more imminent issue: the man looked disturbingly like himself. It was like looking into a mirror that walked and mocked. Sark was wary but he knew how to hide it well, although the other man’s perpetually amused expression made him doubt his success.
"I see you have met Dr. Markovic." Sark silently readied himself for a fight. "If I knew I was going to be traded in for a new model, I would’ve requested for an improvement on my appearance, not a decline."
The other man-Sark decided he would henceforth refer to him as The Double, since he clearly had no intention of revealing his true identity-smirked, and Sark recoiled at how perfect the mannerism was.
"I’m not a carbon copy-merely here to deliver a message," the Double said in a clipped tone. "If you don’t leave this life, one day you will destroy what you most care about."
Sark waited expectantly. "Well, are you going to hazard a guess to as what that might be? I have to admit, this is mighty intriguing."
"Sydney A. Bristow."
If he weren’t already still, Sark would’ve frozen all movement. If he wasn’t afraid of choking, he might have laughed. "That’s a very nice cautionary tale, but with all due respect, bedtime stories tend to stop when you reach puberty. At the very latest."
The Double didn’t reply, and Sark took the opportunity to study him and follow the coin’s journey from hand to hand. The Double’s movements were smooth and stealthy, but there was an unintentional carelessness to them. That was the difference between them: the Double let emotions cloud his judgment-or he was struggling with the separation-whereas Sark did not. Also, he seemed to be standing stiffly, as if careful not to bend his midsection. Sark wondered what sort of wound he had acquired there.
"I know you’re lying," the Double said finally, his hard blue eyes boring uncomfortably into Sark’s. "Your heart is beating at double speed and you have to concentrate to keep your breathing at a constant pace. You’re afraid because for once someone has seen the deepest, darkest secret hidden so far within you that sometimes you don’t even feel it there. I know this because you and I are the same."
Sark raised a skeptical eyebrow, ignoring what the Double had said prior to the last sentence. "Just because you happen to share my DNA-which appears to be quite common these days-doesn’t mean that we are ‘the same.’"
"Perhaps not," the Double conceded easily, and Sark was immediately apprehensive again. The man in front of him did not fit into any existing pigeonhole, but fluttered from one to another. Sark had no idea what he would next do. "I am not you, and you are not me. But one day you will be."
Sark started, despite himself, and his eyes shot to the other man’s face, the flaws that could easily be explained by age and time. Was he suggesting that…?
"I have lived the life you are living, the life that you will lead. You are already in love with Sydney Bristow. You have been, perhaps, ever since you first saw that one photo when you were still a child. Ever since Irina Derevko told you that Sydney’s only weapon and weakness is the strength of her love." The Double was speaking emotionlessly. Sark narrowed his eyes critically; that was something the man would have to work on if he wanted to convince people of the ‘truth’ he portrayed.
"You bury that love now because you think it is a weakness-that Irina was somehow warning you. But one day you will give in. One day, when you are both broken to near-empty shells, you will make her love you. Sydney will love you, try to save you… the man I was, the man you will become. And you will destroy her by taking her gun and burying a bullet in her heart." The Double stared at Sark, but his eyes were clouded like he wasn’t really looking at him at all. "She died with my name on her lips, but it was betrayal that filled her eyes."
"And what is it exactly that you would have me do to save your precious Sydney Bristow?"
The Doubled smiled slightly. "I believe you’re jealous."
Sark frowned. "Provoking me will not make me sympathetic to your cause."
"You do not know yourself as well as you think."
"If what you’re saying is true, then neither do you."
"Perhaps," was all the Double said again, before falling silent. Christ, Sark thought. Could he be any more cryptic? The bronze coin caught his eye again, and Sark was about to grab it and slip out the window when the Double’s next words stopped him.
"I went to see Sydney as well."
"I imagine she loved your magnificent saga of love and deceit."
"She looked happy. It was the night before she left the CIA to be with you, you see," the Double explained. "I tried to tell her, but she was too idealistic to heed any of my warnings."
"Let me get this straight," Sark said, the coin forgotten. "Sometime in the near future the glorified super spy Sydney Bristow will leave the CIA to be with me?" The Double nodded. Another thought occurred to Sark. "And Jack?"
"I went to see him too, but I overestimated his influence over Sydney. Nine months apart had changed things, but not his protectiveness of her."
"He killed you," Sark guessed. "And that’s why you’re here."
"No." There was a glint of a smile on an otherwise emotionless face, and a momentary pause.
"Sydney," Sark whispered, his breath suddenly catching in his throat.
"She got in the way. The baby too." The Double looked out of the glass windows, at the moon half covered by wispy clouds. "In my time, it didn’t make it anyway."
Sark didn’t reply. His mind was filled with images, familiar yet completely foreign. They were vivid; they felt like memories, but memories that did not belong to him. Sydney running towards him, her lips stretched in silent words that he could not read. A blood red flower blooming at her stomach. Her weight falling on him suddenly, and he could not breathe. All he could do was watch her fade, watch every part of his life break into shards that cut his hands and lips. But they did not bleed. The blood belonged only to her.
"She didn’t believe me," the Double said, and Sark’s eyes cleared to reveal the dark and cold office they had been standing in all along, not the one decorated with warm colors he knew Sydney had chosen and taught him to see. "I think that, perhaps, even if she did she would’ve stayed. After love had failed her so many times-"
The pathetic handler who’d been pining over her would be kicked to the curb then, Sark thought. He was never good enough anyway.
"-all those she cared about-"
And Allison had gone through with the process of becoming Francine Calfo. Somehow Sark had known that she would.
"-Sydney would guard any love she found with everything she had, even if she knew it would eventually lead to her death."
And because of him, because of the love she had for him, Sydney would die.
Sark shook his head suddenly. At what point had he started to lose his mind and actually believe this little charade? He was no more in love with Agent Bristow than this imposter had traveled through time as if he were Captain Jack McNeill. And the memories… they were merely delusions, a figment of his overactive imagination. Irina had worried about that when he first began training.
And even if this little scenario were true, if Sydney turned to him as her life support-oh, the irony-that wouldn’t be a bad thing. There were a million ways Sark could work that to his advantage.
Still, the Double was eerie with his all-knowing eyes and cool expression.
"I’d forgotten how blindly arrogant I was at twenty-six, always thinking that I was one step ahead. You forget, Julian-"
Nobody had called him that for eleven years.
"-that there is always one step in front that you have yet to take. You think that the world cannot touch you without your permission, that the step you are standing on like a golden pedestal protects you, but there are people who put you and keep you there. And those people can take everything away."
"If this is the truth," Sark said, "if you can save her by making me walk away, why don’t you just kill me now?"
"We’re not that strong, Julian."
The Double smiled at him then, a tiny glimmer of a smile that showed only a sliver of white teeth. "Think about it," he said, and all at once Sark heard loud and heavy footsteps in the hallway, a cry of "hay, alguien en la oficina que pertenece a los Fuentes del señor!"; he looked down to see a bronze coin in his right hand and a rusty dagger in his left.
And he was alone.
Eleven years earlier
Ever since that first year he came to live with Irina when he was ten years old, Julian had done all his homework in the kitchen. His colored pencils and erasers and then pens and protractors seemed out of place amidst the knives and forks, the wood grained cupboards and granite counters, but the kitchen was where he felt most at home. There weren’t as many "helpers" there, or at least they weren’t as visible. Julian hadn’t known that a maid-any Russian maid-could disarm a man in under three seconds.
Although his mother had rarely spoken of her good friend Irina, and he had only ever seen them together once, it was Irina his mother had chosen for him to stay with after she had gone. Irina had told him once that his mother was meticulous when it came to him, that she had a contingency plan for every occasion, but Julian had trouble reconciling that image with the woman he remembered: a friend, a confidante, a caretaker. She was the strongest person he knew; if she ever felt scared or lonely after his father had left them, she hid it well.
Julian supposed that Irina was like his mother in many ways, but she lacked the forgiving nature. Sometimes he felt that she was somehow disappointed in him, like she expected him to act differently or say something that he didn’t say, but afterwards there was always a small gift left on his bed that he knew was from her. For this reason Julian always strived for something that he could achieve, but didn’t particularly matter to him. It was reading, not drawing; French, not physics; fencing, not swimming. He felt in her debt, whether or not it was the case.
She came to him the night before, as he was finishing his homework in the kitchen (he suspected she knew of his ease in that room, and for that reason had chosen to speak with him there). It wasn’t unusual for her to talk to him unexpectedly, ask him questions that he didn’t quite understand, but it’d taken some time to adjust to at first. It reminded him of the surprise he’d felt when he first came to live with her and found that she’d already set up a bedroom. It was child’s bedroom that looked like it had once belonged to someone, although it was obvious that nobody had lived in there in a very long time. There was a bookshelf that lined one wall, filled with English books that Julian couldn’t yet read but quickly became able to. There was detailing on the ceiling in the room where the rest of the house was plain, and that night Julian lay oddly transfixed by the pattern of stars and absent moon. He would discover, several years later, that it was a replication of the view visible from a city in America.
The times before, she’d talked to him in his room (the room that was not his) but this time was different as she had, unexpectedly, approached him in the kitchen. Julian had known instinctively that it was an important and revealing moment, but here he was twenty-two hours later and still a little confused.
"Next week, I’d like you to perform an errand for me, but it will take a very long time." Irina had always liked to speak in riddles. Julian had wanted to say yes immediately, but she lifted a hand and he’d learnt early on that it was a command of silence. "At times you may not like what you will have to do, and at times it is all you will do. But no matter what your feelings are, if you agree to this now you will always have to follow through."
"Yes," he said after a short moment to check that she had finished, but Irina had anticipated his response and swallowed it with the weight of her own words. "Think about it for the night, Julian. I’ll ask for your answer tomorrow."
And for twenty-two hours Julian had mused over her words, but his initial reaction had not changed.
There was a short cough from behind him, a tiny echo that traveled through the kitchen, and Julian immediately turned on his swivel-stool. It wasn’t Irina as he had expected, however, but a tall blonde man he didn’t recognize. He wore a thin black shirt and dark jeans, and if Julian had to hazard a guess to his age he would say early or mid-30s, but his eyes looked much, much older. They were weary and colorless, somehow, like the eyes of somebody closer to death than to life. Julian shivered to himself, uncomfortable with the direction of his thoughts.
"Who are you?" he asked the blonde man. He looked even more out of place in Irina’s home that Julian sometimes felt.
"I’m a friend."
"Of Irina?"
"Of yours."
Julian paused, considering the words. "I’ve never met you."
The man smiled, but it took a while to develop. Julian had a feeling that he hadn’t smiled genuinely in a long time; his lips were like a tight elastic band that had never been stretched.
"We have met. You just don’t remember it yet." He looked at Julian critically from his cherubic face to his bare feet on the tiled floor, as if deciding whether or not to speak again. "You can call me Sark."
Julian squinted. "Sark? Is that… German?"
"No, Arabic," Sark said, but his smile told Julian that he was lying. He wondered if Sark even knew the answer himself.
"Before your parents… died," Sark started, "what did you want to be? What was your dream?"
Julian furrowed his eyebrows, wondering what exactly this man wanted. Perhaps he’d been right the first time around; perhaps Sark really was a friend of Irina’s. His questions were vague and sudden enough. Perhaps he was here to test his loyalty. Or his interests, anyway. Julian forgot sometimes that they weren’t living in the castle of King Arthur.
"I don’t remember," Julian said, unconsciously pushing his chin up defiantly. "I probably wanted to be a policeman like all little kids. Be a hero and serve my duty or something."
"Liar," Sark smiled, and Julian’s irritation at being a source of entertainment was growing.
"Fine!" he said, throwing up his arms. "I want to be an architect; I want to build things, draw things, create things. Put things together. I want to design buildings that nobody has ever seen before, ones that win awards and stop crowds as they rush off to work. I want to make people stand still, even for just one moment, and appreciate the beauty in something that I made."
"I know," Sark said, "more than you think," and he was still smiling, but it was twisted with something completely unlike happiness. "If you agree to what Irina is asking you, if you say yes and try to show your gratitude and repay her in this way, your dream will be lost forever. This is the final thread, and if it is cut… nothing will bring it back."
Julian stared at the man standing at the edge of the kitchen in thin clothing. Was he not cold? Was his body heat so different to Julian’s that he could withstand the ice shards stabbing at their skin? What was he doing here, in Irina’s house, and why weren’t the maids hovering to see what he wanted to drink? Why was he here with his simple words and complicated meanings?
"Why are you telling me this?" Julian asked curiously.
But sometime in his internal monologue Sark had disappeared, the black fabric trailing around the doorframe the only clue to where he had gone. Julian followed him into the living room, followed the man who moved like he knew exactly where everything in this old home was, and found Sark standing in front of the fireplace. He was looking at a single photo Irina kept on the mantel, of a young girl with brown hair and a wide smile. She looked to be about five or six years old, and Julian had often wondered who she was. Irina had never told him, and Julian, although unbearably curious, had never felt bold enough to ask.
"I’ve been where you are," Sark said.
"What was your dream?"
Julian didn’t know if Sark hadn’t heard his question, or if he was simply declining to answer.
"Some people get weaker with age," he said instead, like it was a vital piece of wisdom he was imparting, or the solution he’d long been searching for. "And without sacrifice, without death, we would have nothing."
Julian wondered if the man was standing too close to the licking flames, if he would start to burn, or if he was so cold that the heat would only cause a part of him to melt.
"I’ve made the same choice, and I’ve learnt that actions have consequences. Lives can be destroyed."
Sark ran a finger along the glass, and all of a sudden Julian thought he saw a tear trickle down the metal coat of armor, eating away at it like acid. There was anguish in there; Julian could see it clearly as if the skin was transparent, as if the shield had been broken in the presence of that girl. He thought he heard Sark utter a word, the name of a city somewhere. In England, or Australia.
"Maybe we aren’t the same," Sark said, turning fully to face Julian. "Maybe you will make the same choices and have a different ending-but I don’t think you will find happiness this way. And Irina," Sark looked at Julian with an indescribable expression on his face, "Irina will not love you any less."
Julian looked at Sark then, not as a man to be feared or intimidated by. He was simply a man who had mistakes and regrets. An ordinary man. An average man, who could control his sorrow no better than the next when alone at night.
"Did you find happiness?"
And then, as if a wall in his façade had completely shattered, Sark visibly faltered and looked lost, as if for once he had no answer or inclination of what to do. "I thought I did, once. But it wasn’t."
He spoke the last words with difficulty, and Julian could see that he was lying, whether he knew it or not. He wanted to say something, something that would comfort and reassure, but then Sark had reinforced his suit of armor once again and Julian could never be sure if he’d really had a glimpse inside. There were no cracks or chinks, no telltale signs that they were ever there. And if they had been… Julian didn’t know what he would have said anyway.
Julian started for the stairs-unconsciously he’d known that was the end of the conversation, that Sark would not be there when he returned. He knocked on Irina’s door and told her when she answered, "I want to be an architect."
She didn’t smile or frown, and he didn’t know if she was disappointed or approved. With her hand still on the doorknob she told him, "get some rest, Julian," before closing the door again, and he knew that although she wouldn’t help him, she probably understood.
***
It was snowing in Moscow. Sark hadn’t been back for years now, ever since he and Sydney started to run from what they thought was doom and ended at something nobody knew but the dead. In that suspended time between one nightmare and the next, they’d been to a lot of places, but never Russia. Never Taipei or Rome or any other place with old memories. Never anywhere cold.
Few people were on the streets at this time of night, but those still walking were bundled in heavy coats and layers. Sark ignored the stares and the chill that penetrated his flimsy clothing. He couldn’t feel it anyway.
He’d finally succeeded. Sydney would never know it, but he had just saved her life, and all he had to do was convince himself to walk out of it.
It’d taken a while though, many attempts that had resulted in timelines tainted with death before the time for it to come. His biggest mistake was thinking that he, at twenty-six, would be willing to give up Sydney if he knew that she would one day be his. Sark at thirty-four wouldn’t have, because he was just as arrogant, just as commanding of fate. And no part of him could ever be that strong. Only Julian-young, impressionable, moldable Julian-could be convinced to give up something he would never have or know.
The future was different now, but Sark didn’t know how. Something inside him was changing; his vision would blur and clear. Sark thought his saw his father waving at him before disappearing again. The streets of Moscow warmed and melted, and his body was feverish.
But then it stopped. The churning of his stomach stilled and the silence became pronounced and unnatural. The world stopped turning, frozen on its axis. There was nothing left for him here. All he could do now was wait.
Sark stood knee-deep in the snow that slid inside his shoes. He knew it wouldn’t be long now until he left this place, became a ghost who had never lived, a spirit residing in an afterlife that had no place for him. He wondered what Sydney would be like now that he had erased himself, now that he was gone. Perhaps they’d still be together, two people who found each other through ordinary means, both on solid ground. Perhaps they’d be with their baby, too early stolen away, in a small home with more than enough love to keep them warm. Or perhaps Sydney would still be dead, killed by his own two hands.
Either way, he had to try.
There was a road in Moscow that he used to frequent. It didn’t exist anymore, in his time, blown up or otherwise ruined beyond repair, but he found himself there now even though he hadn’t taken a single step. It was where he first met an American boy called Daniel as they walked their first day to school-Julian had been too young then to know that Americans were generally unwelcome. The boy disappeared soon after, much like most things that Julian had and knew. Sark didn’t know what had happened to Daniel; he’d never bothered to find out. His entire family had disappeared one day, but in Sark’s mind it happened long before that. The cobblestone street was also where Sark first killed a man, in the dark moments as the clock ticked over to three. He remembered the man and his fingers curling in pain, his blood pooling around him on the uneven ground and seeping into the snow.
The street was where he’d taken his first step into a future that no longer existed. The street is where Sark will take his first step into a life without himself.
His thoughts turned to Sydney again, no longer of their uncertain future, but of their fading past. He didn’t know if he would remember, if what they had would exist or if it would be lost forever, if he would suddenly stop at times and recall the scent of her apricot shampoo on his pillow, the way she curled up against him as they slept. He didn’t know if he would remember, where he was going, but he has the memories at least for now.
Oh, Juliet. I will lie with thee tonight.
Seventeen years later
Traffic had been murder that morning, Julian thought as he entered the crowded lift. He’d lived in some populated areas but none had been as bad as Los Angeles, he ruefully thought, the city with more cars than humans. Perhaps it’d be prudent to look at that apartment building across the street.
"Good morning, Mr. Lazarey," Eleanor, his secretary, said as he stopped and picked up his morning tea from her desk. "Your nine o’ clock appointment is waiting in your office."
"My nine o’ clock?" Julian repeated.
"You didn’t give many specifics, yesterday," Eleanor said without looking up from the computer screen. "Just that, and I quote, ‘Daniel never lets a favor slide’."
"Oh, right," Julian said, understanding dawning onto his features. "The friend he wanted me to see." He took another sip of his drink and froze suddenly. "Hang on. How did you know it was him if even I don’t know his name?" And then, "you let him into my office?"
"I didn’t," Eleanor replied, ignoring the sudden outburst at the end of his sentence. Artists were so temperamental these days. "And it’s a her. She looked very nice, but that could be an act, so I suggest you get in there if she really is some super spy from your rival, here to steal some floor plans."
Julian gave a yelp and darted towards his office door, missing the amused smile Eleanor hid behind her own coffee cup. His strings are so easy to pull, she thought.
The scene that met Julian when he opened the door was not as he expected. The woman was not fiddling with the locks on his drawers, or even sitting in one of the seats in front of his immaculately kept desk. She was not standing at the full-length windows that revealed a magnificent view of… other magnificent buildings; she was actually nowhere to be found at all. Julian narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Had he been right all along? Had the dastardly Graham Petersen-his most underhanded opponent-somehow intercepted the details of this meeting, detained Daniel’s friend and sent a spy in her place?
No, Julian discovered as his eyes swept across the room. Daniel’s friend was indeed there, perched precariously atop his leather couch to get a closer look at the photos hanging above it.
"Ahem," Julian cleared his throat when she took no notice of him standing behind her, and then realized that it probably wasn’t the best course of action when he ended up on the carpet with the woman sprawled out on top of him. He couldn’t see her face or much at all, his face covered with silky brown hair, but he noted that her shampoo smelt like apricots. Somehow he’d known that it would.
She scuttled off him quickly and he was momentarily confused by the lack of warmth, by the feeling that warmth was something he shared only with her. This complete stranger. Julian quickly righted himself when he realized the woman Daniel had asked him to meet with was already up, straightening her clothes and slipping back on her shoes.
"Hi," she said, a faint blush coloring her cheeks, when they were once again presentable. "Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Lazarey. I hope this isn’t too much trouble; Danny told me that you’d have plenty of time to spare, but I know that can’t possibly be true…"
Julian stared, half her words completely sidestepping his ears. Her face was so familiar, somehow; there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that told him he knew her, or he should. He could feel the strands of her hair slide through his fingers; he knew their texture and their length; the touch of her lips on his jaw line, moving delicately down to his neck; the sparkling brown eyes that crinkled at the corners when she smiled…
It was Julian’s turn to blush when he realized that she had stopped speaking for a while now, and was simply watching him with her velvet brown eyes.
"I’m sorry, it’s a little early for me to be up," Julian lied, motioning to the seat facing his desk as he went around to the other side, "Please, sit down."
"Thanks, Mr. Lazarey," she smiled, and the sunlight caught in her hair had him momentarily transfixed again.
"Call me Julian," he said. "Only Eleanor calls me Mr. Lazarey, and that’s because she knows it’s a surefire way to get a rise out of me."
"So that’s why Danny told me to call you that." Sydney laughed slightly, a breathless and soft laugh he could almost remember from somewhere else. "I knew he wasn’t being honest when he said you were an egotistical man who liked to feel superior. But Julian it is."
He paused, searching for an inkling of her name. "I’m sorry, I don’t think Daniel ever mentioned your name," Julian said, crossing his fingers beneath the table. He hadn’t told so many lies in the space of minutes before; this beautiful woman was obviously bad for his morality.
"That’s so like him," she rolled her eyes, then extended her hand with a wide smile that showed deep dimples in her cheeks. "Sydney Bristow. It’s nice to meet you, Julian."
Sydney. Julian repeated the name silently as he took her hand, and immediately a jolt was sent through him, images racing to be processed in his mind. Sydney smiling, an intimate smile, as he kissed her hand. In a red gown, at a soiree, she lifted a champagne glass in a silent toast. On a pier, looking out at the dark water with tears pooling in her eyes…
"Sydney," he said, and the word felt smooth like brandy on his tongue. "What can I do for you?"
"Well," she said, sitting forward on the chair. "I’ve seen a lot of the buildings you’ve designed, and honestly, I’m a little in love with them," she laughed self-consciously. "The melding of the Victorian-era and all things modern… to me, it seems to encompass all things timeless, like love and fate." Sydney stopped. "You probably think I’m a nutcase babbling on about the emotions in a building."
"No, no," Julian said earnestly, "I know exactly what you mean. That’s exactly what I think of, what I try to put in when I’m designing."
"I know you usually work on public buildings like art galleries and for corporations, but I was hoping you might be interested in experimenting on something smaller," Sydney paused. "A house. My house."
"A house?" His brain instantly kicked into fifth gear, thinking of the possibilities. "Hmm," he murmured, a gleam in his eyes. "That would be a challenge, to fit all the elements into such a small area…"
"I was praying that pitch would work."
"How do you know Daniel?" Julian asked suddenly. "I wasn’t aware he had friends other than me."
"Me neither," Sydney joked. "I met him when he was a first-year resident at the hospital. I was there with a friend, and he started pestering me to put in a good word for him even though I barely knew him. He claims it was love at first sight," she rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "I’m pretty sure he could only see her back that first day…"
Love at first sight, Julian thought, a little dazed. Perhaps that’s what he was experiencing now. There was something about sitting there with Sydney Bristow-where had he heard that name before?-that felt so right. It was as if they knew each other somehow, like the oldest part of him remembered and had been waiting just to find her.
The visions were still coming, but in sudden bursts now that threatened to ignite his mind. Sydney standing in the kitchen, dressed in a shirt he knew was his, bleary-eyed and searching for her coffee. On a balcony, looking at stars she wasn’t sure if she wanted to remember. A painting of her on the wall, to remind him of her, always.
There was nothing to be reminded of.
But, Julian thought, that didn’t mean they couldn’t create new memories.
Because something inside him was saying this woman, Sydney, could be the one to fill the void that had lived so long inside his heart.
For a long time he’d been ignorant to the hole inside him, the vacancy that left him shivering at times, even during the heated seasons. His dream of becoming an architect had been achieved, but something was still missing in his life; success had failed to keep him warm. It didn’t bring the happiness that only came with unconditional love, although something had caused him to confuse the two early on in life. He couldn’t remember what.
But he was dreamer who believed in second chances even if it was really only the first, appearing late in life. The years without love would only make the years with even sweeter.
"Would you like a drink?" He asked, a new hope in his heart. He sudden realized Sydney had been eyeing the hot beverage in his hand for some time now. "Coffee?"
"That would be great, thanks," she said gratefully, and watched as he walked over to the kitchenette. "I got here really early, and forgot to buy my own."
Julian returned after a few minutes with a steaming mug, black coffee with one sugar.
"How did you know this was how I took it?" she asked after a sip.
"That’s strange," Julian murmured. Another image-Sydney standing in the kitchen with bed-tumbled hair. "I don’t know. I just made it like that."
"Must’ve been fate," she said with a soft smile.
"Must be," he repeated; his pulse danced with exuberance. Maybe it was.
But then suddenly, unexpectedly, the door of his office swung open and the door to his heart slammed shut. A sandy blonde haired man entered, his stride relaxed and his face content. Julian watched as if from a distance as the man introduced himself as "Michael Vaughn, sorry I’m late." He saw him kiss Sydney’s forehead affectionately, bend to her stomach to inquire about the baby’s health. Julian watched, but he did not see them. He saw another scene, one where he and Sydney were in a cornfield, and he was kneeling in front of her and kissing her bare belly. It was slightly protruding, and the baby growing inside was theirs. She looked down and her face was aglow. He reached up to release her hair from under the red scarf, watched the length tumble down her back, closed his eyes and felt it tickle his eyelids. Even though he couldn’t see, there was no darkness with her by his side.
Julian came back to reality reluctantly, but the images refused to fade away. He knew they would haunt him now, carve another void in his heart.
He wondered why they were so seamless, like they had happened before, like it was a moment back in time belonging solely to them, stolen before its time to go. He looked at Sydney and the other man, their heads bent together, but in his mind it was them.
Without sacrifice, without death, we would have nothing.
He felt a numbness in his stomach or his chest, as if something crucial and held on for so long now had unfolded and started to wither away.
Verona is no more.
I crumbled its brickdust in my fingers.
-Czeslaw Milosz, "Farewell"
FINIS
***
Author’s Notes
This was written for the Sark Writing Challenge at SD-1.net-and very hastily put together in the last five days before the deadline, by the way, as I like to torture myself by procrastinating. The requirements:
a sentence in Spanish/French/Chinese;
an eraser;
a prop from the PotC ride;
a quote from selected Edward Norton movie;
a reference to how Sark came to be a spy; and
a maximum of 10,000 words.
"Hay, alguien en la oficina que pertenece a los fuentes del señor" means something along the lines of "hey, there’s somebody in Mr. Fuentes’s office" in Spanish. However, I did use Babelfish and we all know how unreliable that can be, so it might actually be something like "Mr. Fuentes’s office is having sexy thoughts about the blonde man’s legs!" which, I suppose, is reasonable on the office’s part as well.
"Oh, Juliet. I will lie with thee tonight" is an almost accurate quotation from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Captain Jack O’Neill is a character from Stargate SG-1. He also happens to be a dead ringer from Sting, yes? Da?
"Without sacrifice, without death, we would have nothing" is a quote from Fight Club.
Czeslaw Milosz is a god. It’s common knowledge.
Thank you for reading, and remember: feedback makes a writer’s world go round!
Characters: Sark/Sydney
Summary: Sitting inside a dark and empty linen closet, there was only a sliver of light penetrating the tiniest of cracks, and for Sark all of that was Sydney.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot Productions.
Notes: Written for the Sark Writing Challenge at SD-1.net. The story moves backwards and forwards through time, and the date headings are relative to the section preceding it (i.e. A-present day, B-2 days earlier, C-5 days earlier. C takes place 7 days before A).
***
It’d been some time since Jack had been on a private jet. The CIA was the moralist’s route, but it would never lead to the high life. Jack decided as he fingered the cool cream leather of his armrest-a surprisingly pristine choice for an ex-assassin-that he didn’t care for either.
The last time he saw Sydney was in New York City. By then she’d been missing for two months, but hiding in plain sight. Jack had spent those long, agonizing days reliving his worst nightmare, on a sightless search that turned no leads. He hadn’t considered the possibility that she wasn’t alive. He hadn’t known if he could survive her funeral again.
But then one day she’d just appeared to him; she called him "Daddy" and hugged him, and it was like she’d never left. He’d been taking a brisk walk and found himself in a small flea market, wondered about the appeal of those little trinkets Sydney liked to decorate her home with. He lifted one, tested its weight. What was once only a lump of clay and sand he now saw as innately colorful and strong, but ultimately fragile. He’d learnt that when he dropped it to the ground, and it shattered into a thousand pieces like his heart had when he learnt that Sydney was missing again. But she wasn’t; she was right in front of him.
I missed you, Daddy. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.
Didn’t she know she could tell him anything? That he would never abandon her, never make the same mistakes he’d made when she was a child?
I didn’t want my decision to leave to affect you. When it all comes out… my… betrayal… I don’t want it to ruin everything you’ve worked for.
Any decision she made would always affect him. That’s what he’d learnt while regaining his daughter’s love and trust-what it meant to be family.
I love him, Daddy. I know you don’t understand, or maybe you do-too much. But this is different. He makes me happy. It’s been a long time since I was happy.
And out of the corner of his eye he saw a blonde man with sharp eyes standing casually against the wall. This was the man who had manipulated his daughter and used her feelings as a weapon, Jack thought with simmering rage; this was the man who had taken her away. This was the man who would one day hurt her beyond repair.
Sark was, after all, raised by the most deceitful woman to ever live.
Jack knew he should’ve held his anger, at least until he and Sydney were alone, but he didn’t know how long she would stay. And he had to at least try to break the spell that Sark had cast. In the end his fear was not unwarranted-she’d interpreted his attempts as another example of his lack of faith in her, and then she’d been lost to him again.
It’d felt like he’d been standing still in that market rush for nine months until one morning he’d received a coded message and a jet. Jack knew instinctively that this was his last chance. He wasn’t sure for what.
***
He hadn’t known that dark alleyways existed in Florence at midday, but Jack supposed that Sark had a knack for that.
"Jack."
He frowned at the younger man’s use of his given name. Sark had disappeared from under the radar with Sydney, but Jack hadn’t forgotten his infuriatingly polite mercenary persona. This man standing before him, half hidden in the shadows, had the same glittering cold eyes, the same diamond-hard shell, but something central to him had changed or been taken away. It made Jack uneasy, facing an opponent who wasn’t as he remembered.
"What do you want, Mr. Sark?"
Sark smiled suddenly at the question as if it amused him, teeth gleaming in the dark, but he didn’t reply. "I trust your trip was most comfortable. I sent my favorite jet."
Trepidation trickled down Jack’s spine. "Where is my daughter?"
"She is safe," and all Jack could hear was the unspoken, "for now." Sark stepped closer and Jack was surprised to see that he had aged drastically in the nine months that had passed.
"You know, Jack," Sark said conversationally, "I’ve always admired your infallible judgment of character. It’s a shame you didn’t pass that onto your daughter. She would’ve made a formidable spy if not for that one weakness." Sark paused, as if allowing a heavy moment for the words to sink their claws into Jack’s mind. "And I have learnt that weaknesses inevitably-sooner or later-lead to death."
Jack didn’t allow Sark another breath before he shoved him against the brick wall. "You should know better than to threaten my daughter, Mr. Sark," he hissed. "I do not take that lightly."
"Call it a friendly warning," Sark said, unruffled by the arm pressing hard against his throat. "After all, what good is a death if there is no one around to watch?"
"Listen to me, you sick son of a bitch. If you even think about touching one hair-"
And then suddenly Jack was standing back in the middle of the alleyway, his arms resting at his sides. Sark, standing a few feet away, was as composed as ever. The only indication that the last few minutes had taken place was the coiled tension in Jack’s chest and arms and Sark’s parting words as he walked further into the shadows.
"I believe it is a little late for that, Jack."
***
She was standing the peak of a grassy hill behind the house. Wisps of her hair-escaping the red printed scarf holding it in place-shone in the sunlight. After seeing Sark Jack had expected another woman, someone frightened and emotionally drained, someone in need of a savior. He didn’t expect this; he didn’t expect to see Sydney peacefully watching the stillness of the trees, one hand resting low on her belly.
Dread was dancing along his throat.
"Dad!" She waved and started a light jog to meet him at the bottom of the hill, and even from a distance he could make out the rosy glow of her cheeks. "Thank you for coming," she said.
"Of course," Jack said, then hesitantly, "I’ll always be here when you need me, sweetheart. You only need to ask."
"I have something to tell you," she said eagerly. "But let’s go inside first. You must be tired from the flight." The flight on a plane belonging to a man who would destroy the house that Jack built.
"I’m fine," he said, but the short tone betrayed his tension. "Tell me your news."
Sydney’s eyes lit up and her smile, he decided with a lead-filled stomach, was one of true happiness. Jack had a feeling he didn’t want to know what she was going to say, didn’t want a confirmation of what he already suspected.
"I’m pregnant. Julian and I are going to have a baby." She paused with an impish grin. "And you’re going to be promoted to grandfather. Sounds strange, huh?" She waited, but he gave no response. "Dad?" Sydney asked, uncertainty lacing her features for the first time since he saw her. "Are you still upset because of last time?"
Jack looked at his daughter’s face, the hope and happiness shining through the doubt. It was always he who was sent to quash her dreams. "I know you don’t want to hear this, Sydney, but it’s important that you do. Sark is not the man you think he is. I don’t know what he plans to achieve, but I do know that as long as you are in his presence, you… and your child are in grave danger."
Sydney didn’t respond for a moment, and Jack felt the fingers of desperation tickle at the flesh beneath his skin. Her silence was not a promising sign.
"Can’t you just be happy for me?"
"This is not about happiness, Sydney; it’s about your life! I know you don’t want to believe it, but Sark came to see me when I first arrived. He wants me to be here to watch you die. Is this the man you want to spend the rest of your life with? The one you want to raise your child? He is a murderer; he destroys lives for sport. You need to leave before he does it to you."
"No," Sydney said softly, but her head was shaking with assurance. "He’d never do that to me. Julian loves me, and I love him. This child will be born of love. Nothing will change that." She turned to look at the small cottage behind them, and Jack remembered that her dream had been to live a life free of the CIA, free of the burdens the world of espionage had placed upon her. Sark had interpreted that well, and Jack knew that Sydney’s unshakable faith would be the downfall of her yet.
"I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Dad, but that couldn’t have been Julian. It wouldn’t be the first time that somebody was duplicated. Whoever you saw must be part of something bigger than the three of us."
It was a convincing argument, but Jack knew firsthand the workings of love and denial. Together they were seamless, with only enough room for a knife to slide through. Jack knew this. He could not let Sydney learn it too.
"Get some rest, Sydney," he said finally. "I shouldn’t have ruined this for you. Sleep, and I’ll be back when you wake up."
"Where are you going?" Sydney asked his retreating back.
"I have a business matter to take care of." He smiled reassuringly. "Trust me. Everything will be better when you wake up."
***
Better was something subject to debate, but as he walked purposefully into the office Sark was sitting in, Jack only had his own definition to fall back on.
"Agent Bristow." Sark rose from his seat, a trademark smirk firmly in place. "This is a… pleasant surprise. I must admit, I wasn’t expecting you to leave Sydney’s side so soon."
"You may think you’re invincible, Mr. Sark," Jack said, ignoring the outstretched hand, "you may think that you can court danger and leave unscathed. But you can’t." There was a pistol in his pocket, the grooves of metal warmed by his clenched hand. "You should’ve known that any threat on my daughter’s life would guarantee your death."
And then he took the gun out of his pocket and shot Sark straight through the heart.
If Jack had waited one more moment, taken a closer look at the blonde man with his clear eyes, seen the intense fear and utter lack of comprehension, Jack would’ve realized that something was very, very wrong. But he didn’t wait. And he hadn’t seen the open door or the person dart inside. He hadn’t seen the painting of a woman in a cornfield hanging on the wall, hadn’t seen the unadulterated anguish in Sark’s eyes, hadn’t seen Sydney run into the room at the very last second and stop in front of the gun. All he saw was the trajectory of a bullet, the pathway slicing through the air before it hit Sydney, and she was falling, her arms folded together as if cradling a baby. And then he was falling too, killed by a howling man with clear eyes and clear tears.
But in his last moments, before his body separated from his soul, Jack could only see the glittery cold eyes of the man in the alleyway.
Eleven months earlier
The moonlight streaming into the room came into view first, and then the feeling of his body wrapped around her, their legs so entangled that she couldn’t even tell which were hers and which were his. He was awake, of course. She instinctively knew this. In the entire time they’d been together, Sydney had never woken first.
"Do you ever sleep?" Her voice was like low, husky and rumpled like the sheets they lay on.
"Sleep is for mere mortals," he replied with a smirk that she could feel against the back of her shoulder, and Sydney let out an annoyed grunt that only served to further amuse him. She should’ve expected an answer like that.
"I can’t do this anymore; this can’t work with us on opposite sides of the law." The words left her mouth before she could stop them, and she cringed inwardly at how abrupt and callous and how intentionally hurtful they sounded.
Sark’s body tensed imperceptibly behind her, the motion so small that she would have missed it if not for the fact that she’d spent more than four years studying his every move. "We’ve handled it quite well so far," he said lightly. "I don’t see why this has to change."
Twisting around in his arms, Sydney leaned back a fraction so that she could see his face. "I’m leaving the CIA. I’m not needed there anymore. It’s not where I belong." She smiled wryly. "What I’m afraid of most, though, is telling my father. About us."
Sark smirked. "He most likely will not be too pleased."
"Probably not."
They lay in a comfortable silence for a moment more before Sydney reluctantly pulled away. "I should go. It’s late, and I think there were more tails on me today."
She was fully dressed and almost at his bedroom door when he appeared next to her, pulling her fully clothed body flush against his naked one. Sydney found it incredibly erotic, and she knew from the slightly upturned lips that he could probably read her exact thoughts.
"Why, Mr. Sark," she purred with a heavy-lidded gaze and slow smile. "I’d say you’re happy to see me, but I wouldn’t put it past you to have a gun strapped in down there."
"I don’t need any extra weapons," he whispered hotly into her ear, and then pulled back enough for her to see his first unguarded smile of the night. His eyes were dark but his hand stroking her cheek was warm, and when he kissed her his lips were burning, still and sweet.
Sydney let her eyes drift close and a smile settle on her lips, and then she rested her forehead against his. His warm breath fanned over the planes of her face and she knew without a doubt that she’d never been happier than at that very moment.
"When we leave this place, leave behind the loyalties and debts that were not of our choosing, there will be something new waiting for us. And nobody will ever be able to take that, or this, away. Sydney," he said, "you should know that I will always do everything in my power to keep you safe."
"I know," she said simply, her lips brushing against his lightly as she spoke. "I think, perhaps, I’ve always known."
She disentangled herself from him then, became a separate entity with her own arms and legs and breath, but even though they were no longer touching she could feel some part of him still with her.
"Sydney," Sark’s eyes grew somber, allowing her to see their bottomless depths. "I don’t sleep because I know-more than anyone-that this life is fleeting. That any moment here could be my last, and sleep would be wasteful." He paused, and she could see him weighing his next words. "I only stay awake when I’m with you."
Sometimes, when he said things like that, she had no words.
"Goodnight, Sydney."
***
To him, she was light.
Sitting inside a dark and empty linen closet, there was only a sliver of light penetrating the tiniest of cracks, and for Sark all of that was Sydney.
He watched as she stripped off her clothes; her body still warm from a lover’s embrace. She didn’t let on as she slid into a cotton jersey-it was his, he recognized faintly-but Sark knew immediately that she could feel another presence there. He could see the stiffening of her spine, smell the fear and adrenalin coat the walls of her veins; he could feel her pulse quicken as if it were beating beneath his fingertips.
It’d been some time now, but none of that had changed.
He waited as she checked the room carefully, then the windows and the doors, knowing that she would find no one there. It wasn’t until she was asleep, much later, that he climbed out of the closet, his steps silent as they padded across the room to her bedside.
She didn’t look different. There were the same pink lips that made his heart threaten to stop, and the same habit of sighing softly in her sleep. And her skin, he knew, would be smooth and silky to his touch.
He remembered this night. It was branded on his memory like a hot mark of life, a small token that he had once lived. He remembered how he had told her of his feelings, not well, in not so many words, and how she had understood. He didn’t remember what those feelings were though. The memory played through his mind, flashing with color and vibrancy, but at times it grew dull. And he was no longer the leading man, but an offside character who could do nothing but wait for the events to unfold.
He couldn’t be sure, but he had loved her once, ran with her in Aphrodite’s playground. The feelings coursing through him now were different, but almost the same. They were indefinable and he did not want to trace the battered emotions with the tip of a rusty dagger.
Sark ran a finger over the softness of her lips, re-learnt their texture and shape, and while lost in thought she’d grabbed his wrist in a death grip and pinned him to the ground with her own body weight. He stiffened, his entire length frozen by their sudden contact, and he was lost in the crushed velvet brown eyes that felt like they were reaching deep into his soul.
It was the thought that brought him back. He knew that it couldn’t possibly be true.
"Julian," she whispered in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"Sydney," he said, but the role of the man she loved was harder to slip into than he’d imagined. It had been too long, he decided. "You shouldn’t leave the CIA… and it’d be best if we didn’t see each other anymore."
Her eyes narrowed, and she stumbled away from the man who was not her lover, but bore an uncanny resemblance to him. Sark wondered what it was that gave him away, what caused her to realize and stare at him with distrustful eyes. Was his voice different, etched by blood and betrayal? Was it his lips, his hair, the pads of his thumbs as they drew circles on her arms? Were the circles different; were his eyes opaque and creased with age and desperation? What made her stumble upon the truth and recoil?
A part of him rejoiced at the fact, let the relief sweep the bitterness into his steel-lined stomach. The other part of him, weaker and quiet now, wept for what he had lost. The line cut inside him had been cleaned, but the open wound left him vulnerable to infection. He didn’t want to risk it, didn’t want to trace it with that rusty dagger hidden deep inside his pocket and pressed against his thigh. The scars had yet to fade.
"Who are you?" she asked, and in the time he had struggled with his internal battle she had retrieved her gun and steadied it at his heart. "What do you want from me?"
"Sydney, you must listen to me," he said. "There are people who will hurt you, even if they don’t want to… even if they care. I can’t save you this time. I can’t keep you safe. You need to be able to save yourself."
"I don’t know who you are, but you can’t fool me," Sydney began after a moment, but he could already tell from her fiery expression that she didn’t believe him. He should’ve expected as much. "You are not Sark, no matter how much you look like him and act like him, or how well you know our private conversa-"
Time was running short, and for them there was nothing more to be said. He kissed her then, ignored the gun trapped between their bodies. He kissed her like he had before she left his home earlier that night, but this time it wasn’t still and sweet, this time it was laced with a violent desperation that spiraled back to his conscious, but it didn’t matter because it’d all been ruined anyway.
He had loved this woman once. There was a moment back in time-long passed now-that she was his, back before he remembered that he was beyond saving, back before he lost her forever, back before he sent her to her watery grave. He was a monster who had loved this woman, and for a moment now he could pretend that she wasn’t really gone.
When she pulled away her lips were swollen, denial was glazed across her eyes and her breath came in hard pants. She stumbled back, lifted the gun and pulled the trigger-
-but he wasn’t there.
From beside her he watched, invisible, as she searched for the bullet still lodged in his unfeeling heart.
Seeking out Sydney had been selfish and cruel on his part. It’d taken him some time to admit that who he’d been with her was somebody, somebody real and the closest he’d ever been to whole. He’d come here and tried to recapture that, salvage the part of him that was dying now; he’d wanted to capture a fragment of their past, but instead all he’d achieved was tainting her future.
Four years earlier
There were guards in the hallway. Lots of guards, and they all carried enormous ready-to-use guns. A reasonable man would’ve choked with fear and died. A man of above average courage and skill would’ve required many high-tech gadgets and sufficient back up to see him through.
Outside, Mr. Sark scaled the building alone with ease. He liked the feeling of high-altitude wind in his hair. It reminded him of the danger. It made him feel alive.
The glass panel of the office-located on the 23rd level-dislodged easily, as Sark had expected. In his experience men with all the hair on his head were lacking it elsewhere, and Emmanuel Fuentes was no exception. He did, however, Sark mused, have exceptional taste. The office had a minimalist but undeniably classy feel about it. It reminded Sark of his own "home."
Within seconds he opened the safe behind a cleverly placed bookshelf. Luckily he’d known about the secret button located on the faux encyclopedia-volume E for ethics. Unluckily, the Rambaldi artifact he was to collect was absent, the interior of the safe uncomfortably bare.
"Sydney Bristow," he muttered to himself. He was rarely beaten, but on the oddest of occasions it was always her.
"Not quite."
Sark turned to see a figure sitting on the lounge in the corner. Half-covered in darkness as he was, Sark knew the man must’ve come in after he arrived. When the man stepped forward Sark noticed two things.
The first: he was holding the bronze coin that was in some indirect way related to Rambaldi the Prophet. Sark filed away the information-he would need to retrieve the object as soon as he resolved the more imminent issue.
The second and said more imminent issue: the man looked disturbingly like himself. It was like looking into a mirror that walked and mocked. Sark was wary but he knew how to hide it well, although the other man’s perpetually amused expression made him doubt his success.
"I see you have met Dr. Markovic." Sark silently readied himself for a fight. "If I knew I was going to be traded in for a new model, I would’ve requested for an improvement on my appearance, not a decline."
The other man-Sark decided he would henceforth refer to him as The Double, since he clearly had no intention of revealing his true identity-smirked, and Sark recoiled at how perfect the mannerism was.
"I’m not a carbon copy-merely here to deliver a message," the Double said in a clipped tone. "If you don’t leave this life, one day you will destroy what you most care about."
Sark waited expectantly. "Well, are you going to hazard a guess to as what that might be? I have to admit, this is mighty intriguing."
"Sydney A. Bristow."
If he weren’t already still, Sark would’ve frozen all movement. If he wasn’t afraid of choking, he might have laughed. "That’s a very nice cautionary tale, but with all due respect, bedtime stories tend to stop when you reach puberty. At the very latest."
The Double didn’t reply, and Sark took the opportunity to study him and follow the coin’s journey from hand to hand. The Double’s movements were smooth and stealthy, but there was an unintentional carelessness to them. That was the difference between them: the Double let emotions cloud his judgment-or he was struggling with the separation-whereas Sark did not. Also, he seemed to be standing stiffly, as if careful not to bend his midsection. Sark wondered what sort of wound he had acquired there.
"I know you’re lying," the Double said finally, his hard blue eyes boring uncomfortably into Sark’s. "Your heart is beating at double speed and you have to concentrate to keep your breathing at a constant pace. You’re afraid because for once someone has seen the deepest, darkest secret hidden so far within you that sometimes you don’t even feel it there. I know this because you and I are the same."
Sark raised a skeptical eyebrow, ignoring what the Double had said prior to the last sentence. "Just because you happen to share my DNA-which appears to be quite common these days-doesn’t mean that we are ‘the same.’"
"Perhaps not," the Double conceded easily, and Sark was immediately apprehensive again. The man in front of him did not fit into any existing pigeonhole, but fluttered from one to another. Sark had no idea what he would next do. "I am not you, and you are not me. But one day you will be."
Sark started, despite himself, and his eyes shot to the other man’s face, the flaws that could easily be explained by age and time. Was he suggesting that…?
"I have lived the life you are living, the life that you will lead. You are already in love with Sydney Bristow. You have been, perhaps, ever since you first saw that one photo when you were still a child. Ever since Irina Derevko told you that Sydney’s only weapon and weakness is the strength of her love." The Double was speaking emotionlessly. Sark narrowed his eyes critically; that was something the man would have to work on if he wanted to convince people of the ‘truth’ he portrayed.
"You bury that love now because you think it is a weakness-that Irina was somehow warning you. But one day you will give in. One day, when you are both broken to near-empty shells, you will make her love you. Sydney will love you, try to save you… the man I was, the man you will become. And you will destroy her by taking her gun and burying a bullet in her heart." The Double stared at Sark, but his eyes were clouded like he wasn’t really looking at him at all. "She died with my name on her lips, but it was betrayal that filled her eyes."
"And what is it exactly that you would have me do to save your precious Sydney Bristow?"
The Doubled smiled slightly. "I believe you’re jealous."
Sark frowned. "Provoking me will not make me sympathetic to your cause."
"You do not know yourself as well as you think."
"If what you’re saying is true, then neither do you."
"Perhaps," was all the Double said again, before falling silent. Christ, Sark thought. Could he be any more cryptic? The bronze coin caught his eye again, and Sark was about to grab it and slip out the window when the Double’s next words stopped him.
"I went to see Sydney as well."
"I imagine she loved your magnificent saga of love and deceit."
"She looked happy. It was the night before she left the CIA to be with you, you see," the Double explained. "I tried to tell her, but she was too idealistic to heed any of my warnings."
"Let me get this straight," Sark said, the coin forgotten. "Sometime in the near future the glorified super spy Sydney Bristow will leave the CIA to be with me?" The Double nodded. Another thought occurred to Sark. "And Jack?"
"I went to see him too, but I overestimated his influence over Sydney. Nine months apart had changed things, but not his protectiveness of her."
"He killed you," Sark guessed. "And that’s why you’re here."
"No." There was a glint of a smile on an otherwise emotionless face, and a momentary pause.
"Sydney," Sark whispered, his breath suddenly catching in his throat.
"She got in the way. The baby too." The Double looked out of the glass windows, at the moon half covered by wispy clouds. "In my time, it didn’t make it anyway."
Sark didn’t reply. His mind was filled with images, familiar yet completely foreign. They were vivid; they felt like memories, but memories that did not belong to him. Sydney running towards him, her lips stretched in silent words that he could not read. A blood red flower blooming at her stomach. Her weight falling on him suddenly, and he could not breathe. All he could do was watch her fade, watch every part of his life break into shards that cut his hands and lips. But they did not bleed. The blood belonged only to her.
"She didn’t believe me," the Double said, and Sark’s eyes cleared to reveal the dark and cold office they had been standing in all along, not the one decorated with warm colors he knew Sydney had chosen and taught him to see. "I think that, perhaps, even if she did she would’ve stayed. After love had failed her so many times-"
The pathetic handler who’d been pining over her would be kicked to the curb then, Sark thought. He was never good enough anyway.
"-all those she cared about-"
And Allison had gone through with the process of becoming Francine Calfo. Somehow Sark had known that she would.
"-Sydney would guard any love she found with everything she had, even if she knew it would eventually lead to her death."
And because of him, because of the love she had for him, Sydney would die.
Sark shook his head suddenly. At what point had he started to lose his mind and actually believe this little charade? He was no more in love with Agent Bristow than this imposter had traveled through time as if he were Captain Jack McNeill. And the memories… they were merely delusions, a figment of his overactive imagination. Irina had worried about that when he first began training.
And even if this little scenario were true, if Sydney turned to him as her life support-oh, the irony-that wouldn’t be a bad thing. There were a million ways Sark could work that to his advantage.
Still, the Double was eerie with his all-knowing eyes and cool expression.
"I’d forgotten how blindly arrogant I was at twenty-six, always thinking that I was one step ahead. You forget, Julian-"
Nobody had called him that for eleven years.
"-that there is always one step in front that you have yet to take. You think that the world cannot touch you without your permission, that the step you are standing on like a golden pedestal protects you, but there are people who put you and keep you there. And those people can take everything away."
"If this is the truth," Sark said, "if you can save her by making me walk away, why don’t you just kill me now?"
"We’re not that strong, Julian."
The Double smiled at him then, a tiny glimmer of a smile that showed only a sliver of white teeth. "Think about it," he said, and all at once Sark heard loud and heavy footsteps in the hallway, a cry of "hay, alguien en la oficina que pertenece a los Fuentes del señor!"; he looked down to see a bronze coin in his right hand and a rusty dagger in his left.
And he was alone.
Eleven years earlier
Ever since that first year he came to live with Irina when he was ten years old, Julian had done all his homework in the kitchen. His colored pencils and erasers and then pens and protractors seemed out of place amidst the knives and forks, the wood grained cupboards and granite counters, but the kitchen was where he felt most at home. There weren’t as many "helpers" there, or at least they weren’t as visible. Julian hadn’t known that a maid-any Russian maid-could disarm a man in under three seconds.
Although his mother had rarely spoken of her good friend Irina, and he had only ever seen them together once, it was Irina his mother had chosen for him to stay with after she had gone. Irina had told him once that his mother was meticulous when it came to him, that she had a contingency plan for every occasion, but Julian had trouble reconciling that image with the woman he remembered: a friend, a confidante, a caretaker. She was the strongest person he knew; if she ever felt scared or lonely after his father had left them, she hid it well.
Julian supposed that Irina was like his mother in many ways, but she lacked the forgiving nature. Sometimes he felt that she was somehow disappointed in him, like she expected him to act differently or say something that he didn’t say, but afterwards there was always a small gift left on his bed that he knew was from her. For this reason Julian always strived for something that he could achieve, but didn’t particularly matter to him. It was reading, not drawing; French, not physics; fencing, not swimming. He felt in her debt, whether or not it was the case.
She came to him the night before, as he was finishing his homework in the kitchen (he suspected she knew of his ease in that room, and for that reason had chosen to speak with him there). It wasn’t unusual for her to talk to him unexpectedly, ask him questions that he didn’t quite understand, but it’d taken some time to adjust to at first. It reminded him of the surprise he’d felt when he first came to live with her and found that she’d already set up a bedroom. It was child’s bedroom that looked like it had once belonged to someone, although it was obvious that nobody had lived in there in a very long time. There was a bookshelf that lined one wall, filled with English books that Julian couldn’t yet read but quickly became able to. There was detailing on the ceiling in the room where the rest of the house was plain, and that night Julian lay oddly transfixed by the pattern of stars and absent moon. He would discover, several years later, that it was a replication of the view visible from a city in America.
The times before, she’d talked to him in his room (the room that was not his) but this time was different as she had, unexpectedly, approached him in the kitchen. Julian had known instinctively that it was an important and revealing moment, but here he was twenty-two hours later and still a little confused.
"Next week, I’d like you to perform an errand for me, but it will take a very long time." Irina had always liked to speak in riddles. Julian had wanted to say yes immediately, but she lifted a hand and he’d learnt early on that it was a command of silence. "At times you may not like what you will have to do, and at times it is all you will do. But no matter what your feelings are, if you agree to this now you will always have to follow through."
"Yes," he said after a short moment to check that she had finished, but Irina had anticipated his response and swallowed it with the weight of her own words. "Think about it for the night, Julian. I’ll ask for your answer tomorrow."
And for twenty-two hours Julian had mused over her words, but his initial reaction had not changed.
There was a short cough from behind him, a tiny echo that traveled through the kitchen, and Julian immediately turned on his swivel-stool. It wasn’t Irina as he had expected, however, but a tall blonde man he didn’t recognize. He wore a thin black shirt and dark jeans, and if Julian had to hazard a guess to his age he would say early or mid-30s, but his eyes looked much, much older. They were weary and colorless, somehow, like the eyes of somebody closer to death than to life. Julian shivered to himself, uncomfortable with the direction of his thoughts.
"Who are you?" he asked the blonde man. He looked even more out of place in Irina’s home that Julian sometimes felt.
"I’m a friend."
"Of Irina?"
"Of yours."
Julian paused, considering the words. "I’ve never met you."
The man smiled, but it took a while to develop. Julian had a feeling that he hadn’t smiled genuinely in a long time; his lips were like a tight elastic band that had never been stretched.
"We have met. You just don’t remember it yet." He looked at Julian critically from his cherubic face to his bare feet on the tiled floor, as if deciding whether or not to speak again. "You can call me Sark."
Julian squinted. "Sark? Is that… German?"
"No, Arabic," Sark said, but his smile told Julian that he was lying. He wondered if Sark even knew the answer himself.
"Before your parents… died," Sark started, "what did you want to be? What was your dream?"
Julian furrowed his eyebrows, wondering what exactly this man wanted. Perhaps he’d been right the first time around; perhaps Sark really was a friend of Irina’s. His questions were vague and sudden enough. Perhaps he was here to test his loyalty. Or his interests, anyway. Julian forgot sometimes that they weren’t living in the castle of King Arthur.
"I don’t remember," Julian said, unconsciously pushing his chin up defiantly. "I probably wanted to be a policeman like all little kids. Be a hero and serve my duty or something."
"Liar," Sark smiled, and Julian’s irritation at being a source of entertainment was growing.
"Fine!" he said, throwing up his arms. "I want to be an architect; I want to build things, draw things, create things. Put things together. I want to design buildings that nobody has ever seen before, ones that win awards and stop crowds as they rush off to work. I want to make people stand still, even for just one moment, and appreciate the beauty in something that I made."
"I know," Sark said, "more than you think," and he was still smiling, but it was twisted with something completely unlike happiness. "If you agree to what Irina is asking you, if you say yes and try to show your gratitude and repay her in this way, your dream will be lost forever. This is the final thread, and if it is cut… nothing will bring it back."
Julian stared at the man standing at the edge of the kitchen in thin clothing. Was he not cold? Was his body heat so different to Julian’s that he could withstand the ice shards stabbing at their skin? What was he doing here, in Irina’s house, and why weren’t the maids hovering to see what he wanted to drink? Why was he here with his simple words and complicated meanings?
"Why are you telling me this?" Julian asked curiously.
But sometime in his internal monologue Sark had disappeared, the black fabric trailing around the doorframe the only clue to where he had gone. Julian followed him into the living room, followed the man who moved like he knew exactly where everything in this old home was, and found Sark standing in front of the fireplace. He was looking at a single photo Irina kept on the mantel, of a young girl with brown hair and a wide smile. She looked to be about five or six years old, and Julian had often wondered who she was. Irina had never told him, and Julian, although unbearably curious, had never felt bold enough to ask.
"I’ve been where you are," Sark said.
"What was your dream?"
Julian didn’t know if Sark hadn’t heard his question, or if he was simply declining to answer.
"Some people get weaker with age," he said instead, like it was a vital piece of wisdom he was imparting, or the solution he’d long been searching for. "And without sacrifice, without death, we would have nothing."
Julian wondered if the man was standing too close to the licking flames, if he would start to burn, or if he was so cold that the heat would only cause a part of him to melt.
"I’ve made the same choice, and I’ve learnt that actions have consequences. Lives can be destroyed."
Sark ran a finger along the glass, and all of a sudden Julian thought he saw a tear trickle down the metal coat of armor, eating away at it like acid. There was anguish in there; Julian could see it clearly as if the skin was transparent, as if the shield had been broken in the presence of that girl. He thought he heard Sark utter a word, the name of a city somewhere. In England, or Australia.
"Maybe we aren’t the same," Sark said, turning fully to face Julian. "Maybe you will make the same choices and have a different ending-but I don’t think you will find happiness this way. And Irina," Sark looked at Julian with an indescribable expression on his face, "Irina will not love you any less."
Julian looked at Sark then, not as a man to be feared or intimidated by. He was simply a man who had mistakes and regrets. An ordinary man. An average man, who could control his sorrow no better than the next when alone at night.
"Did you find happiness?"
And then, as if a wall in his façade had completely shattered, Sark visibly faltered and looked lost, as if for once he had no answer or inclination of what to do. "I thought I did, once. But it wasn’t."
He spoke the last words with difficulty, and Julian could see that he was lying, whether he knew it or not. He wanted to say something, something that would comfort and reassure, but then Sark had reinforced his suit of armor once again and Julian could never be sure if he’d really had a glimpse inside. There were no cracks or chinks, no telltale signs that they were ever there. And if they had been… Julian didn’t know what he would have said anyway.
Julian started for the stairs-unconsciously he’d known that was the end of the conversation, that Sark would not be there when he returned. He knocked on Irina’s door and told her when she answered, "I want to be an architect."
She didn’t smile or frown, and he didn’t know if she was disappointed or approved. With her hand still on the doorknob she told him, "get some rest, Julian," before closing the door again, and he knew that although she wouldn’t help him, she probably understood.
***
It was snowing in Moscow. Sark hadn’t been back for years now, ever since he and Sydney started to run from what they thought was doom and ended at something nobody knew but the dead. In that suspended time between one nightmare and the next, they’d been to a lot of places, but never Russia. Never Taipei or Rome or any other place with old memories. Never anywhere cold.
Few people were on the streets at this time of night, but those still walking were bundled in heavy coats and layers. Sark ignored the stares and the chill that penetrated his flimsy clothing. He couldn’t feel it anyway.
He’d finally succeeded. Sydney would never know it, but he had just saved her life, and all he had to do was convince himself to walk out of it.
It’d taken a while though, many attempts that had resulted in timelines tainted with death before the time for it to come. His biggest mistake was thinking that he, at twenty-six, would be willing to give up Sydney if he knew that she would one day be his. Sark at thirty-four wouldn’t have, because he was just as arrogant, just as commanding of fate. And no part of him could ever be that strong. Only Julian-young, impressionable, moldable Julian-could be convinced to give up something he would never have or know.
The future was different now, but Sark didn’t know how. Something inside him was changing; his vision would blur and clear. Sark thought his saw his father waving at him before disappearing again. The streets of Moscow warmed and melted, and his body was feverish.
But then it stopped. The churning of his stomach stilled and the silence became pronounced and unnatural. The world stopped turning, frozen on its axis. There was nothing left for him here. All he could do now was wait.
Sark stood knee-deep in the snow that slid inside his shoes. He knew it wouldn’t be long now until he left this place, became a ghost who had never lived, a spirit residing in an afterlife that had no place for him. He wondered what Sydney would be like now that he had erased himself, now that he was gone. Perhaps they’d still be together, two people who found each other through ordinary means, both on solid ground. Perhaps they’d be with their baby, too early stolen away, in a small home with more than enough love to keep them warm. Or perhaps Sydney would still be dead, killed by his own two hands.
Either way, he had to try.
There was a road in Moscow that he used to frequent. It didn’t exist anymore, in his time, blown up or otherwise ruined beyond repair, but he found himself there now even though he hadn’t taken a single step. It was where he first met an American boy called Daniel as they walked their first day to school-Julian had been too young then to know that Americans were generally unwelcome. The boy disappeared soon after, much like most things that Julian had and knew. Sark didn’t know what had happened to Daniel; he’d never bothered to find out. His entire family had disappeared one day, but in Sark’s mind it happened long before that. The cobblestone street was also where Sark first killed a man, in the dark moments as the clock ticked over to three. He remembered the man and his fingers curling in pain, his blood pooling around him on the uneven ground and seeping into the snow.
The street was where he’d taken his first step into a future that no longer existed. The street is where Sark will take his first step into a life without himself.
His thoughts turned to Sydney again, no longer of their uncertain future, but of their fading past. He didn’t know if he would remember, if what they had would exist or if it would be lost forever, if he would suddenly stop at times and recall the scent of her apricot shampoo on his pillow, the way she curled up against him as they slept. He didn’t know if he would remember, where he was going, but he has the memories at least for now.
Oh, Juliet. I will lie with thee tonight.
Seventeen years later
Traffic had been murder that morning, Julian thought as he entered the crowded lift. He’d lived in some populated areas but none had been as bad as Los Angeles, he ruefully thought, the city with more cars than humans. Perhaps it’d be prudent to look at that apartment building across the street.
"Good morning, Mr. Lazarey," Eleanor, his secretary, said as he stopped and picked up his morning tea from her desk. "Your nine o’ clock appointment is waiting in your office."
"My nine o’ clock?" Julian repeated.
"You didn’t give many specifics, yesterday," Eleanor said without looking up from the computer screen. "Just that, and I quote, ‘Daniel never lets a favor slide’."
"Oh, right," Julian said, understanding dawning onto his features. "The friend he wanted me to see." He took another sip of his drink and froze suddenly. "Hang on. How did you know it was him if even I don’t know his name?" And then, "you let him into my office?"
"I didn’t," Eleanor replied, ignoring the sudden outburst at the end of his sentence. Artists were so temperamental these days. "And it’s a her. She looked very nice, but that could be an act, so I suggest you get in there if she really is some super spy from your rival, here to steal some floor plans."
Julian gave a yelp and darted towards his office door, missing the amused smile Eleanor hid behind her own coffee cup. His strings are so easy to pull, she thought.
The scene that met Julian when he opened the door was not as he expected. The woman was not fiddling with the locks on his drawers, or even sitting in one of the seats in front of his immaculately kept desk. She was not standing at the full-length windows that revealed a magnificent view of… other magnificent buildings; she was actually nowhere to be found at all. Julian narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Had he been right all along? Had the dastardly Graham Petersen-his most underhanded opponent-somehow intercepted the details of this meeting, detained Daniel’s friend and sent a spy in her place?
No, Julian discovered as his eyes swept across the room. Daniel’s friend was indeed there, perched precariously atop his leather couch to get a closer look at the photos hanging above it.
"Ahem," Julian cleared his throat when she took no notice of him standing behind her, and then realized that it probably wasn’t the best course of action when he ended up on the carpet with the woman sprawled out on top of him. He couldn’t see her face or much at all, his face covered with silky brown hair, but he noted that her shampoo smelt like apricots. Somehow he’d known that it would.
She scuttled off him quickly and he was momentarily confused by the lack of warmth, by the feeling that warmth was something he shared only with her. This complete stranger. Julian quickly righted himself when he realized the woman Daniel had asked him to meet with was already up, straightening her clothes and slipping back on her shoes.
"Hi," she said, a faint blush coloring her cheeks, when they were once again presentable. "Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Lazarey. I hope this isn’t too much trouble; Danny told me that you’d have plenty of time to spare, but I know that can’t possibly be true…"
Julian stared, half her words completely sidestepping his ears. Her face was so familiar, somehow; there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that told him he knew her, or he should. He could feel the strands of her hair slide through his fingers; he knew their texture and their length; the touch of her lips on his jaw line, moving delicately down to his neck; the sparkling brown eyes that crinkled at the corners when she smiled…
It was Julian’s turn to blush when he realized that she had stopped speaking for a while now, and was simply watching him with her velvet brown eyes.
"I’m sorry, it’s a little early for me to be up," Julian lied, motioning to the seat facing his desk as he went around to the other side, "Please, sit down."
"Thanks, Mr. Lazarey," she smiled, and the sunlight caught in her hair had him momentarily transfixed again.
"Call me Julian," he said. "Only Eleanor calls me Mr. Lazarey, and that’s because she knows it’s a surefire way to get a rise out of me."
"So that’s why Danny told me to call you that." Sydney laughed slightly, a breathless and soft laugh he could almost remember from somewhere else. "I knew he wasn’t being honest when he said you were an egotistical man who liked to feel superior. But Julian it is."
He paused, searching for an inkling of her name. "I’m sorry, I don’t think Daniel ever mentioned your name," Julian said, crossing his fingers beneath the table. He hadn’t told so many lies in the space of minutes before; this beautiful woman was obviously bad for his morality.
"That’s so like him," she rolled her eyes, then extended her hand with a wide smile that showed deep dimples in her cheeks. "Sydney Bristow. It’s nice to meet you, Julian."
Sydney. Julian repeated the name silently as he took her hand, and immediately a jolt was sent through him, images racing to be processed in his mind. Sydney smiling, an intimate smile, as he kissed her hand. In a red gown, at a soiree, she lifted a champagne glass in a silent toast. On a pier, looking out at the dark water with tears pooling in her eyes…
"Sydney," he said, and the word felt smooth like brandy on his tongue. "What can I do for you?"
"Well," she said, sitting forward on the chair. "I’ve seen a lot of the buildings you’ve designed, and honestly, I’m a little in love with them," she laughed self-consciously. "The melding of the Victorian-era and all things modern… to me, it seems to encompass all things timeless, like love and fate." Sydney stopped. "You probably think I’m a nutcase babbling on about the emotions in a building."
"No, no," Julian said earnestly, "I know exactly what you mean. That’s exactly what I think of, what I try to put in when I’m designing."
"I know you usually work on public buildings like art galleries and for corporations, but I was hoping you might be interested in experimenting on something smaller," Sydney paused. "A house. My house."
"A house?" His brain instantly kicked into fifth gear, thinking of the possibilities. "Hmm," he murmured, a gleam in his eyes. "That would be a challenge, to fit all the elements into such a small area…"
"I was praying that pitch would work."
"How do you know Daniel?" Julian asked suddenly. "I wasn’t aware he had friends other than me."
"Me neither," Sydney joked. "I met him when he was a first-year resident at the hospital. I was there with a friend, and he started pestering me to put in a good word for him even though I barely knew him. He claims it was love at first sight," she rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "I’m pretty sure he could only see her back that first day…"
Love at first sight, Julian thought, a little dazed. Perhaps that’s what he was experiencing now. There was something about sitting there with Sydney Bristow-where had he heard that name before?-that felt so right. It was as if they knew each other somehow, like the oldest part of him remembered and had been waiting just to find her.
The visions were still coming, but in sudden bursts now that threatened to ignite his mind. Sydney standing in the kitchen, dressed in a shirt he knew was his, bleary-eyed and searching for her coffee. On a balcony, looking at stars she wasn’t sure if she wanted to remember. A painting of her on the wall, to remind him of her, always.
There was nothing to be reminded of.
But, Julian thought, that didn’t mean they couldn’t create new memories.
Because something inside him was saying this woman, Sydney, could be the one to fill the void that had lived so long inside his heart.
For a long time he’d been ignorant to the hole inside him, the vacancy that left him shivering at times, even during the heated seasons. His dream of becoming an architect had been achieved, but something was still missing in his life; success had failed to keep him warm. It didn’t bring the happiness that only came with unconditional love, although something had caused him to confuse the two early on in life. He couldn’t remember what.
But he was dreamer who believed in second chances even if it was really only the first, appearing late in life. The years without love would only make the years with even sweeter.
"Would you like a drink?" He asked, a new hope in his heart. He sudden realized Sydney had been eyeing the hot beverage in his hand for some time now. "Coffee?"
"That would be great, thanks," she said gratefully, and watched as he walked over to the kitchenette. "I got here really early, and forgot to buy my own."
Julian returned after a few minutes with a steaming mug, black coffee with one sugar.
"How did you know this was how I took it?" she asked after a sip.
"That’s strange," Julian murmured. Another image-Sydney standing in the kitchen with bed-tumbled hair. "I don’t know. I just made it like that."
"Must’ve been fate," she said with a soft smile.
"Must be," he repeated; his pulse danced with exuberance. Maybe it was.
But then suddenly, unexpectedly, the door of his office swung open and the door to his heart slammed shut. A sandy blonde haired man entered, his stride relaxed and his face content. Julian watched as if from a distance as the man introduced himself as "Michael Vaughn, sorry I’m late." He saw him kiss Sydney’s forehead affectionately, bend to her stomach to inquire about the baby’s health. Julian watched, but he did not see them. He saw another scene, one where he and Sydney were in a cornfield, and he was kneeling in front of her and kissing her bare belly. It was slightly protruding, and the baby growing inside was theirs. She looked down and her face was aglow. He reached up to release her hair from under the red scarf, watched the length tumble down her back, closed his eyes and felt it tickle his eyelids. Even though he couldn’t see, there was no darkness with her by his side.
Julian came back to reality reluctantly, but the images refused to fade away. He knew they would haunt him now, carve another void in his heart.
He wondered why they were so seamless, like they had happened before, like it was a moment back in time belonging solely to them, stolen before its time to go. He looked at Sydney and the other man, their heads bent together, but in his mind it was them.
Without sacrifice, without death, we would have nothing.
He felt a numbness in his stomach or his chest, as if something crucial and held on for so long now had unfolded and started to wither away.
Verona is no more.
I crumbled its brickdust in my fingers.
-Czeslaw Milosz, "Farewell"
FINIS
***
Author’s Notes
This was written for the Sark Writing Challenge at SD-1.net-and very hastily put together in the last five days before the deadline, by the way, as I like to torture myself by procrastinating. The requirements:
"Hay, alguien en la oficina que pertenece a los fuentes del señor" means something along the lines of "hey, there’s somebody in Mr. Fuentes’s office" in Spanish. However, I did use Babelfish and we all know how unreliable that can be, so it might actually be something like "Mr. Fuentes’s office is having sexy thoughts about the blonde man’s legs!" which, I suppose, is reasonable on the office’s part as well.
"Oh, Juliet. I will lie with thee tonight" is an almost accurate quotation from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Captain Jack O’Neill is a character from Stargate SG-1. He also happens to be a dead ringer from Sting, yes? Da?
"Without sacrifice, without death, we would have nothing" is a quote from Fight Club.
Czeslaw Milosz is a god. It’s common knowledge.
Thank you for reading, and remember: feedback makes a writer’s world go round!