- how to be dead -
Rating: R
Pairing: Sark/Sydney
Summary: Sydney is hunted, and Sark tries to keep her safe.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them. Imitation is the highest form of compliment.
Spoilers: Through S3
Feedback: Flowers need water and writers need feedback. Be kind, water a writer today. shadesofbrixton@yahoo.com
Archive: Take it anywhere, but drop me a line so I know where it goes.
Author’s Notes: With many thanks to dagnylilytable who reminded me to get off my ass, and that there is no Sark without Irina.. Written for Sarkastic’s Sarkney Challenge (May 15), for cognacgirl. I was a backup writer, so you’re not allowed to think poorly of me for this being so late.
Up to Three Things You Want to See in the Fic:
1. A major scene with knives (fight or discussion about them)
2. A motorcycle
3. Jack/Sark interaction
(agreement/disagreement/fight/whatever)
Up to Three Things You Don't Want to See in the Fic:
1. Sappy Sark
2. Allison
3. Lauren
“and it’s hard to take control
when your enemy’s old and afraid of you
you discover that the monster you are running from
is the monster in you”
How To Be Dead
Irina’s last words to him had been an order to protect her daughter.
They had stood on a wharf at the southernmost point of Flinders Island, Sark’s scalp itching in the salty air, as she had cast the lines of a Morgan 34 to him on the docks. Leaning on a main stay, she had curled her hand around the tightly braided wire and showed him her teeth.
“I’m leaving her in your hands,” she had said, as she’d begun to pull away. “Keep her safe.” Sark remembered suppressing the urge to trot down the dock with her drifting away. “I’m proud of you,” she had said, before the wind had obscured her face with sailcloth, and that was when Sark knew he would never see her again.
* * *
It wasn’t the church they’d been questing after for so long, so much as it was the cemetery that lurked behind. In the shadow of the impressive building, the cemetery seemed small and dingy. The church had been restored in the past decade, and the stones no longer reflected the soot marks from errant arson attempts, or the line that had once passed around its exterior marking the water level of a flood. Instead, it was milky grey stone that watched them impassively as they eased around the building.
Sark, though he didn’t say anything to his company, found it unsettling. The high shadows of the rosette stained glass window splashed the well groomed front lawn with refracted moonlight that he was anxious to leave behind.
The cemetery was no better, and Sark periodically checked behind him, even though no one could have followed them.
No one knew they were here. He had been the one to make sure of that. His lips pressed together, thinning in aggravation, and he pushed the thought to one side. It wasn’t time to start second guessing himself. Not when they were so close to finishing this life for good.
He returned his gaze to the front of their small group, and saw Jack’s posture relax minutely as they passed through the low rod-iron gates that surrounded the cemetery. The gates were topped with tiny, spear-like spires that bode ill for children with slippery fingers who insisted on swinging from the nearby tree branches.
They passed several monoliths that made up the stations of the cross. Only half of them were visible in the moonlight – the rest were obscured in the deep shadows of the trees. Though it had been over a decade, Sark’s mind still ran through the accompanying prayers that had been drilled into his head by cloaked women with stern hands during his youth.
Jack circled the stations carefully, their third party drifting between them like a free atom, as Sark took up the rear. It was only when they were all gathered at the fourteenth station that Jack finally looked at Sark.
Sark was looking down at the base of the pillar. Lord, help us rise again after dying with you. May all who have fallen asleep rise again. He snorted, and could feel Jack’s impatience pull his attention.
They were both watching him.
He shook his head, waving them off, and stepped back half a stride to permit Jack’s anticipated exposition.
Instead, their third party placed her hand on the pillar.
“Sydney,” Jack cautioned her.
Fingers spread over the raised carving of Jesus’ burial, Sydney pressed hard. They could all hear the sound of dirt shifting against stone, loud in the empty night.
A crevice opened at the base of the monolith. Without looking at either of them, Sydney slipped into the space, and disappeared below the surface of the earth. The night was suddenly very quiet, with all the empty space between Jack and Sark. He found himself looking at the elder man, waiting for some kind of instruction.
After a moment, Jack looked up at him, annoyed. “Well?” He said.
Sark blinked, readjusted his plans, and then shook his head. “I thought…for a moment, I thought – ”
“I don’t pay you to think,” Jack snapped, and nodded his head sharply toward the void where Sydney has disappeared.
Sark stifled his sigh, nodded, and slipped into the crawlspace. The stone sealed behind him.
Sydney was waiting.
* * *
She was seated on an empty catafalque, her toes just brushing the ground. Her hands were tucked under her knees, shielding her legs from the must or the cold of the stone in vain. She didn’t look up when he ducked into the small cavern. Sark exhaled sharply through his nose, ignored his irritation, and began examining the space.
“There’s another exit,” she told him.
“Another one that only you can open and close.” He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, defiantly staring at the improbability of air flow evident from Sydney having lit some abandoned candles, and switched off his flashlight.
“Yes,” she muttered, freeing a hand only long enough to shove her mutinous hair behind her ears, and then jammed it back under one lean thigh.
Sark could feel his teeth clamp at the clipped words, and shook his head. Don’t let it get to you. You’ve made it this far. Just keep going. The end is in sight.
“How long do we have to stay here?” she asked him. She was still staring at her knees, and it made the skin on his neck crawl to see the detached look on her face again.
“Do you even know what country we’re in?” he said quietly.
She looked up.
And saw nothing.
“Sydney.” The word snapped in the small space of the tomb, and Sark forced himself not to think about how loud it had been. Her expression gave a small jolt, and she shook herself visibly. He crossed the room in a few short strides – it really was small, he noticed. But then, the dead didn’t need that much room – and took her by the shoulders.
“Are you alright?” His voice was cold.
“Where am I?” So quiet he had to strain to hear.
His fingers tightened on her small bones. Deceptive, her shoulders were – belied none of the strength that lay so shallow beneath the surface. “Your father brought us here. Do you remember that?”
“No.” Her face twisted bitterly.
“Do you remember my name?”
Her lip curled in a sneer. “Is that a joke, Sark?”
“Shut up.” He released her shoulders, and turned away. Started pacing the small space. He paused mid-stride, his frown deepening. The last six months had been enough to carve lines around his mouth and eyes. “There was Vienna, and then Auschwitz, and then – ”
She shifted awkwardly on the stone, her fingers coming free covered in filth. “I remember…I remember the Ivory Coast…”
Sark gave a clipped “good” and then started pacing again. “It’ll work its way out of your system. You’ll probably be ill in – ”
He looked up at the sound of Sydney vomiting behind the crypt. The stench filled the air and Sark took an involuntary step back. “Right about now, then,” he murmured to himself.
“What’s happening to me?” she asked, gasping as she straightened up, the back of her hand wiping across her mouth in a gesture familiar enough to Sark to have completely ruined any sexual affiliation.
“You’ll just forget again, if I waste time explaining it now,” he said tersely, and forced his legs to halt. He had a feeling he was making her dizzy with the constant movement, anyway. “What I need to know is, do you remember how to get out of here?”
“Sark,” she said weakly – almost afraid that she would give him the wrong answer – “I don’t even remember how we got in here.”
Sark closed his eyes for a moment.
Damn Jack Bristow and all his future generations. Except for the one in front of me. Maybe her, too.
When he opened them again, with a steady exhale, Sydney was watching him with what was a bit closer to her normal expression – a touch of wariness, a good bit of hatred, and a coiling spring in her figure that was ready to propel her body as far away from his as possible.
“My father wouldn’t leave me down here with you unless you were helping do…whatever it is he’s doing. You’re doing,” she amended.
“He doesn’t know what I’m doing, and neither do you,” Sark said. “And he certainly doesn’t know that you’ve started regaining your memories of your times in between his…treatment. That’s why he’s put me here. To make sure you don’t remember, and to make sure you don’t get out.”
“What’s he trying to do?” Sydney asked, touching her toes to the ground as she leaned forward.
Sark swallowed, and turned his blue gaze on her, fingers clutched carefully in his pockets to make sure they wouldn’t find errant targets like throats for throttling. They had had this conversation before. Several times.
He said, “He’s trying to bring back Julia Thorne.”
And she said, as she had in the past, “My father would never – ”
And he would cut her off, as he always had. “You have no idea what you father would ‘never’.” And this part had been added after the first time: “And we will end this conversation here.”
A fire lit Sydney’s expression, and he could see her biting back a desire to claw out his eyes. He felt a surge of warm satisfaction at that defiance.
“I suggest you spend your remaining time searching for a way out of this crypt,” he advised her. “Your father is not foolish enough to trust me with all of the details of his plan, but I do know that we are nearing the end of our time together. If your memories do not culminate before this time, I fear you will...not be returned to your current state the next time you are presented this opportunity.”
Sydney stared at him for only a moment before she stood, and began searching the crypt for something that would remove them from it.
* * *
Sark cleaned his weapon as Sydney worked. He didn’t know what had made him question Jack earlier in the evening, and it worried him that he had – something in his head had tipped him one way or the other, and he had thought that something would be different.
He swallowed his bitter laugh. Nothing was ever different. Not with Jack Bristow. For all his disturbing trinkets and magic tricks, there was an element of dangerous predictability that lay beneath the surface. One which included a decree to never ask questions. Despite Jack’s inability to answer, though, Sark had gleaned certain information through observation of pattern:
He knew Jack was conferring with Arvin Sloane, as they waited.
He knew that there were a certain number of these crypts planted across the world, which only Sydney and Nadia could access.
He knew that Irina Derevko, independent of her siblings, had risked all their lives by contacting him during his stay in Tasmania, prior to his teaming with Sydney and Jack. That Irina was working elsewhere to ensure the safety of her daughter – and the removal of her from her husband’s unpredictable hands.
He knew that, come death or betrayal, he could remain true to all three of the people he took orders from: I will protect this woman.
“Sark.”
He looked up, holstering his weapon. She was clenching her fists, as if longing for some object that she could not grasp.
“Where’s…” He could see her throat work for a moment. “What happened to Vaughn?”
Even if it kills me.
“Dead,” Sark answered in his clinical, brusque tone. “Keep working.”
He dropped his gaze to the ground, flexing awkwardly on the cold granite where he had perched himself to allow her to work. He heard her go back to the search, her hands never faltering as they checked every crevice and ornament on the trinkets that decorated the over-blown grave.
“How did…” He could hear the thickness of her voice. He thought it was a marked improvement from the first time they had had this conversation, where there had been endless sobbing and a very awkward hour of preventing her from asphyxiating herself on tears.
“You killed him,” he said, as if reading from a text book. “He attacked you.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said quietly, but still her hands moved on. He made no move to reply – she often said things along this line. But it was the truth – one of the many things Sark had learned in his time with her was that truth was often far more damaging than any line of lies he could have compacted.
* * *
“She’s been injured.” Jack kept his eyes on his daughter; on the red welt that was growing on her face where Sark had backhanded her.
“She attacked me. Went for my gun.”
Jack didn’t say anything for a moment, simply lifted his hand to his daughter’s chin and tilted her face slightly, so that it was easily visible in the moonlight. The blow Sark had landed on her face to keep her from reaching his weapon glared angrily back at him, and he could already tell that it would blacken badly.
Jack turned, his face schooled and his weapon drawn.
Sark reeled under the shot, fell to his knees as the fire tore through his upper arm. His right hand flew to the wound, almost afraid of finding it too hot to touch, but that was only the blood that was making it so hot – hot and slippery, and he was afraid his jaw would crack if his teeth clenched any tighter.
“Don’t do it again,” Jack said.
Sark managed to blink, his knees screaming from the sudden drop, his arm angry, and his pride flaring like a wounded animal.
And Sydney did not move.
* * *
“There’s another exit,” she echoed.
Sark didn’t even bother looking at her. She was seated in the middle of the floor, drawing shapes in the dirt. He was staring at the ceiling, his head cocked at a slight angle, wondering if he had imagined sounds coming from above him.
He tried not to feel claustrophobic, the concrete walls pressing out on the packed earth on six sides of him. He hated that even six feet under and surrounded by thick stone walls, he could feel Jack Bristow’s presence lingering.
Las Vegas, this time. The soil was sandier and the climate changes were making Sydney’s voice rougher.
She stopped her scratching, seemed to be forcing herself not to be sick to her stomach, and looked up at him.
“Sark?”
“Hm.” His eyes continued to traverse the low roof, though it seemed worthless now to try to figure which direction Bristow had gone in.
“What is this?”
His eyes flicked momentarily downward, and then back up to her face. “The constellation Menippe. Do you remember drawing it?”
“I’ve drawn this before?”
“A few times.”
She looked from the stick in her hand back to the design in the dirt. “I don’t…I… what does it mean?’
He watched her for a moment, drinking in the sight of her confusion, trying to balance what it meant that she had gone straight into questions regarding her surroundings, instead of the basic, usual panic – where is my father, Vaughn, why are you here, what am I doing…
“Nothing,” he settled on, and tore his eyes away to the ceiling again. “It means nothing.”
There were moments of silence, as if Sydney was trying to puzzle out some great mystery – unwinding great braids of confusion in her own brain. “Where’s my sister? Where’s Nadia?”
“Sydney,” he said in an exasperated rush, dropping into a crouch with his hands dangling between his legs. “Don’t you want to know why you’re in a tomb?”
She cast her eyes around. “Because my father put me here.”
Sark startled backwards a mere centimeter. “You remember that? You remember your father bringing us down here?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t bring us down here…I did. He stayed on top.” She looked at him with her head tilted minutely. “He can’t come down here.”
Sark inched forward. “Why not?”
Staring at him for a second more, Sydney seemed to consider. Then she shook her head, and the moment was broken. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. He just can’t, I guess. He hasn’t told you?” she cast him a desperate glance.
“Sydney,” Sark said gravely. “The last we spoke, you couldn’t even remember your father being with us on these lovely excursions.”
Something in her gaze twisted. “I don’t remember that.”
Sark shot upward, and resumed his agitated pacing. “Of course you don’t,” he spat. He had lost the ability to stay still weeks ago, only a few landmarks into their journey. The heavy press of earth had made him restless in ways he had never known he could be. He was beginning to lose control of the parts of his brain that kept him calm. Hours and hours of waiting were beginning to wear at his resistance.
Her voice again, petulant and annoyed. “Why should I trust you? You’re just doing this for money.”
He laughed, shook his head.
“How long will you run, Sydney? How long will you hide, before it cramps your skin and turns your mouth black? They will find you.” Sark swallowed, his lungs feeling suddenly empty. “It’s a matter of whether it will be on your terms…or not.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
Sark’s gaze pinned her. “Do you even remember enough to know what ‘this’ is?” He sneered as she turned away, tired of her predictable response. Tired of watching her give in.
Her eyes were back on him in a flash. “Tell me,” she pressed.
The last time he’d told her, he had ended up with a bullet in his arm. She knew he was studying her, and he watched as she schooled her face into a mask.
He turned away first, this time. “Because you cared for me, once. Perhaps I’d like you to remember that.”
“You’re lying.” Her voice was quiet, but not small. It was still a far cry from before, though, when she had attacked him for it.
“No,” he said apologetically. “I’m not.”
A rasping sound. Sydney was standing, moving toward the great stone block that barred the way they had come in. As she approached, Sark watched, wide-eyed, as the block drew itself back under the contact of her hand, and saw her rise, trance-like, out of the cell.
Jack.
He’s early.
Sark stalked after her, his boots rubbing out the drawings she had made in the dirt.
“We’ve been found,” Jack told Sark tersely upon his appearance, jabbing the needle viciously into the base of his daughter’s skull. Her eyes lapsed closed as he deployed the plunger, letting the fluid drain into her body. It was clear, but not without color – it melted rainbows in its corners, the same way gasoline and antifreeze seemed to, under certain light.
How, Sark didn’t ask. Where now, he refused to say. Instead he stared, as placid as the woman between them, and refused to blink.
Jack looked at him, as if realizing for the first time that he wasn’t talking to himself, the expression on his face indicating that he rather wished he was. “Arvin Sloane, I believe, may have given away our route. Which means we must alter our course.”
“There are a limited number of your hideaways remaining. She will be caught, if they know all of them.”
“They can’t know all of them,” Jack insisted, moving off at a quick pace. His daughter trailed him as if attached by a string, and Sark had no option but to unclip his weapon and follow.
“Sloane will have men at the rest of the sanctuaries. The ones he hasn’t given the CIA.”
Jack didn’t even bother looking at him. “He won’t. He still likes to play this game.”
“And if they position men at the one we choose to go to next?”
“They won’t,” Jack said, angry because it was a very real possibility.
Sark bit down so hard he heard a rush of empty noise travel through his jaw and into his ears, and forced himself to relax. “There are only a limited number of cemeteries in the world. It may be time to consider – ”
Jack rounded on him, and Sydney pulled herself to such an abrupt halt she almost knocked herself off balance. The man was radiating anger at Sark, in his space and leaning. “I do not pay you to question me, boy.”
“Even if it means saving Sydney?” Sark said, his voice a silent venom.
“I am saving Sydney,” Jack snarled at him, his eyes furious. “Don’t you tell me what to do with my own daughter. I have been preparing for this for years. Neither you, nor Arvin Sloane, nor any member of any government will take my daughter from me. Have I made myself absolutely clear?”
Sark watched him, lazy and aloof. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
Jack snorted in amusement, and pulled himself back, almost physically rearranging his emotions. “Of that, I am aware. You’ll stay,” Jack said. It wasn’t a question.
“I’ll stay. As long as you’re the highest bidder, I’ll stay.”
“Hm.” Jack watched him for a beat, in silence. “Let me know if you receive any counter offers.”
Sark offered a simpering smile. “Competitors’ money is dreadfully difficult to spend if the world has ended, Agent Bristow.”
* * *
“Who are you loyal to? My father? Or me?”
Sark stared at her, impassive. He let her grow restless under his gaze before he opened his mouth. “Neither,” was his answer. It would become no more detailed. At least, not for the benefit of his present company. The last time he had tried to explain the intricacies of their business agenda, he had wasted an entire night.
She took a deep, shaking breath, and leaned against the cool slab that made up the ornate cross at the head of the tomb. He knew what she was thinking, because they’d been through it before – that if he was telling the truth, and he wasn’t pulling any loyalties despite the money that she must remember changing hands, then there was nothing to keep him from killing her.
But he didn’t. And wouldn’t – though only he could be sure of that last part.
And that made her brow furrow, and her hands clench, and the absolute hopelessness of the situation wash over her face.
She hadn’t attacked him since the first time. Some instinctual memory must have lingered that that would be a bad idea – for both of them. Sark rubbed his arm absentmindedly, soothing the ache that hadn’t quite disappeared. Probably never would.
“Where are we going?”
She had swung her head around toward him, still leaning against the cross, and looking as weary as she should, having traveled for so long and slept so little.
Jack only let her sleep in his presence. It was another modified form of control.
“Does it really matter?” Sark wondered.
“No,” she said oddly. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
He let the silence lapse again. They spent most of their time in silence, with Sydney drifting or scratching designs in the dirt, if there had been no concrete laid in their hiding place. And he spent most of his time watching her.
Her brown hair had faded, its carefully maintained sheen lost without the sun. She seemed increasingly unaware of her own body – for as much as her mind might be clearing up, she still seemed to curl in on herself, and act vulnerable in ways that wholly unsettled Sark.
When she was injected – when she was on her way to Julia Thorne, if Jack’s gene modification was to be trusted in – she took on that old stance. That old fire in her limbs, the spark in her expression that wanted to clock him and run.
But there was nothing in her eyes.
No one there. Just Jack Bristow, tugging on strings and keeping the supply of fluid constant and steady.
Here, at least, in the dull light of the final resting place of – he shifted his gaze to check the nameplate on the sarcophagus – Benjamin VanAsche, she could look at him without that vacant expression.
* * *
Sark regained consciousness as they were cauterizing the wound with the heated tang of his knife; the sharp taste of belt leather and blood between his teeth flooding his senses as Jack held him down. His flesh smoked before Sydney relented.
“You’ll scar, but you won’t die,” she pronounced after. Jack pulled the belt away and let it fall.
“Pity,” Sark muttered as he flexed his shoulders and scraped the tip of his tongue against his teeth to remove the obtrusive taste.
* * *
The Hague.
It was one of Sark’s favorite cities, a lifetime ago. The last time he had visited, he had been fourteen years old. It was the last birthday he had spent with Irina as a son, instead of a Lieutenant.
They had visited Westbroek Park for the roses, and Sark had suffocated a gardener on her orders.
Underground, the city was the same. Old, beautiful, delicate and strong. Sydney sat in the middle of the floor, keeping a safe distance and acute tally on each of his movements, which were few. They faced one another, her legs folded and his stretched out in front of him, hoping she wouldn’t try to snap his feet off.
“Do you ever wonder what you might have been if you hadn’t been this?” She spoke without looking at him, her fingers trailing in the hard-packed earth.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the luxury of that fantasy,” he replied, his voice muted in the small space. “And neither do you. Your…training…began significantly prior to my own.” He liked to watch the flex of her jaw after he said such things.
“I would have been an English teacher.” She sounded dreamy, distant. The drug was still filtering out of her system, but it did him good to know that she was building up a tolerance to it – it wasn’t making her physically ill any longer.
“I know,” he said, and she scowled. “Just like your mother. How quaint.”
* * *
They were in Tokyo when Jack fell.
It was halfway between their taxi and the modern crypt that they were headed for – a Capsule Hotel complex, each one the size of a walk-in refrigerator laid on its side. There was a quiet snap, and Jack fell forward, one knee shattered by the bullet. Sark pulled Sydney flush against the wall, drew his own weapon, and fired a volley into the blue-mesh crowd, Kevlar vests and stenciled “FBI” jackets flashing in troops through the brilliance of his gunfire.
“Run!” Jack yelled at him, throwing a vial of green liquid and a syringe at him. Though his skin crawled from it, he caught them both and ran.
They went up instead of down, Sydney lurching up the stairs behind him at full tilt, until they slammed into the roof exit, and she staggered. Sark caught her close, pulse hammering and on the lookout, as she dry heaved and shook her head free of the drug.
“We’re not in a grave,” she observed, still slung over his free arm. The hand holding his gun was next to his head.
“We might be soon,” he said in a less than reassuring tone.
“Give me a gun,” she demanded, levering off his arm. He let her go.
“I don’t have another.”
“Liar,” she said mildly, plucking his auxiliary weapon from his waist.
“Thief,” he countered. “Across the roofs and down, I think.”
She paused, her silhouette harsh in the neon-lit night. “Where’s Dad?”
Sark let the vial drop to the ground, and crushed it with a sharp popping of glass. The syringe he flung over the edge of the building, not much caring where – or on who – it landed. “He was shot. By Director Dixon, I think. We need to go, Sydney. Now.”
She blinked once, and then turned away from the door. “How many buildings?”
“Four,” he said. “They’re close enough to jump. I’ll cover you.”
She gave him a look that indicated just how far she would be relying on that statement before heading out across the roof.
* * *
“So, you remember the graves.”
She accepted the hand he held out to help her off the fire escape, but would not ask him how he got down before her, or where. “I remember a lot more, now.”
“Do you,” he said, his tone clipped. “How nice for you.”
She yanked her hand away and he favored her with a toothy smile before turning toward a motorcycle he had seen parked in the alley. If their luck held out, it would have a full tank of gas. He didn’t think it would take any more than that to get to their destination.
“Sydney,” he said, fingers tangled in the delicate tracery of wires at the steering column of the motorcycle. “How well do you know your Greek mythology?”
“Well enough,” she said, sounding insulted. Sark didn’t have time to study her face. He redoubled his efforts on the wires at his fingertips.
“Then you remember Orion.”
“The hunter. Of course.” She tilted her head back, searching the skies for the simplest constellation, but the city lights obscured any detail.
“And that he had two daughters.”
Sydney looked back down at Sark. “Two daughters?”
Sark nodded imperceptibly. “Menippe and Metioche. They sacrificed themselves to spare their people a deadly plague. For their sacrifice, they were honored with constellations.” The motorcycle roared to life, startling Sydney back a step and bringing a satisfied smile to her face. Slinging a leg over the seat, Sark settled himself with comfortable ease, and turned to her. “I’ll explain the rest when we get there,” he said, his voice raised to be heard over the engine.
“Get where?” Sydney yelled over his shoulder as she crawled on behind him. Her hands wrapped around him, clutching into his jacket, and he could feel her steady weight behind him. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, stabilizing himself against this twist of fate, and then kicked off. They left nothing but noise in their wake.
* * *
“Sydney,” Vaughn cautioned, approaching her with a hand stretched out. His gun lay on the ground, some quaint gesture of peace. Sark watched in amusement as Sydney took a step back, her nostrils flaring and her shoulders pulling back in subconscious horror. “Sydney, you’ve got to stop.” The outstretched hand curled into a pleading fist.
“I’ve got to…” she sputtered, outraged. “I’ve got nothing! This is ridiculous!”
Jack moved behind her, settling his hands on each of her shoulders, and she stopped moving. The three of them surveyed Vaughn and the rest of the Agents that had turned up to apprehend Sydney. Sark noted the conspicuous absence of Weiss and Flinkman.
“Sydney,” Dixon echoed, “if you don’t come with us, we’ll have to open fire – ”
“You’re going to kill me, anyway!” she screeched at them. “Just do it now!”
Sark and Vaughn were the only ones who saw Sydney move – everyone else had their eyes on Jack. She tried to pull out of her father’s arms, and in an instant Vaughn had pulled a knife – a knife of all things, black handled and shining – out of what could only be called a utility belt, and flung it end over end at her.
Before it had even left his hand, Sydney had taken Jack’s weapon and shot Vaughn twice in the forehead.
As they fled, Sark pulled the knife from where it had embedded itself in the wall next to his arm.
* * *
“What is this place?” Sark watched as Sydney made herself as familiar as possible with her surroundings – checking for exits, eyes peeling shadowed corners. There were quite a few.
“It’s a warehouse,” Sark said dryly. She cast him a perfunctory glare, and then turned back to her study, craning her neck to try and see how many stories the hollow core of the warehouse went up. Though he couldn’t see the walkways that spanned up the seventeen stories from the lack of light, he knew how far they went up.
He’d killed a man, once, by pushing him off the top catwalk.
“What is it we’re looking for?”
His voice was flat in the steel building. “I simply hoped you wouldn’t want to spend the night underground, for once.”
She turned to look at him, one hand trying to tame the hair that was hopelessly out of control from the ride on the motorcycle. Sark tried not to think about the strength of her form behind him. She was regaining her former stature, the surety of self that had brought her as far as this. “Tell me why we’re here,” she said, her voice matching the construction of the warehouse: hollow, strong.
Sucking briefly on the inside of his cheeks, Sark came to the decision all at once – he couldn’t realistically push her towards this end and try to protect her from it at the same time. Turning away, he waved for her to follow him, and they traversed the length of the great room with only the echo of their footsteps to interrupt them.
Whatever Sydney had been preparing herself for, Sark could see the confusion written on her face when he drew back the curtain on the far wall that revealed the star charts.
“What…?” she asked, her eyes slipping along the drawings, trying to find anything familiar to latch on to.
“It’s Corona Borealis and Corona Australis. The Northern and Southern Crown.” Sark raised a hand and gestured in the vague direction of a cluster of stars. “And there, you will see Menippe and Metioche.”
“The sisters,” Sydney said, her voice indicating that she was beginning to cotton on.
“They slit their own throats with their weaving shuttles. It’s said that Hades was so awed by their unnecessary sacrifice that he pulled away the plague he had planned to settle on their city.” Sark’s dispassionate voice stopped for a moment before darkening. “It has long since entered into legend that the daughters of a bloody-minded hero could stop a future plague sent from Death himself.”
Sydney stared at the map.
Sark watched the float of her hair shifting over her shoulders as she turned back to look at him. Their eyes met.
“Your father believes that if he can hide you for long enough, Nadia’s…sacrifice…will be sufficient to stop the plague.”
She didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched into what would have been awkward, had Sark been prone to such an emotion.
“His backup plan being that Julia Thorne is no sister to Nadia.”
He watched the shiver stretch up her back. “My father…” she whispered.
“Your father,” he said in a strong voice, and took a step forward, his arms crossed over his chest, “will do whatever it takes to save his daughter. Even if it means sacrificing the rest of us.”
“I remember,” she said quietly, her arms mimicking Sark’s, but defensive. “I remember reading the translations that we got from intel. I remember the CIA trying to detain me. I remember running.”
“You’ve been running for a long time, Sydney.” Sark smiled at her, not a comforting expression. “Aren’t you tired?”
Her expression hardened. “And you? Where do you come into this? A lackey for my father – ”
“I serve,” he interrupted her loudly, and then quieted when she snapped her mouth shut. “I serve three people.” He held up three fingers. “All of whom have identical prerogatives. Irina Derevko. Myself.” He lowered his hands, letting them rest easily in his pockets. “And you.”
Her expression blanked. “But I…”
“You came to me when the CIA came after you,” he said flatly. “We spent three months together, running. We had a house in New Zealand with your mother. You were…” he pursed his mouth, studying her. “Happy.”
“And then the CIA caught up with us,” Sydney filled in. “And we came to my father.”
“Naturally,” Sark confirmed. “Though, he thinks he came up with the ingenious idea of hiring me himself…”
“I don’t…” she turned away, staring blindly beyond the star map. “I don’t remember any of that.”
Sark could feel the anger explode somewhere in the rear of his skull, and then spent a few moments tamping down on it. “The important thing, right now, is to get you away from here. From…everywhere.”
“Where can I go?” she spat, whirling on him. “Everyone is hunting me – the governments, the terrorists, my own father, and you – ”
“Don’t forget Sloane.”
She stumbled in her speech. “I…what?”
“Surely you don’t think that he will stand by and let his own daughter be sacrificed?” Sark sneered at her.
She stared at him.
“You will return to your mother.” He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, and she found her voice.
“Without you,” she said, sounding empty. “Who will…” She looked up at him, her arms straightening purposefully and falling to her side. “You’ve always…looked after me. You’ve explained things to me. I…” she touched his lower arm, right above where it disappeared into his pocket. “Thank you.”
“Don’t touch me,” he said coldly. She drew back, surprised. “And don’t thank me yet. Don’t thank someone who is willing to sacrifice billions of lives for your own.” She stared at him. “It’s sadistic,” he finished. Looking beyond her, at the map, he said, “You’ll be safe here for the night,” and walked away from her.
* * *
When he found her that morning, she had cleaned the motorcycle, and bits of it were still laying around her in a hemisphere. She had her back to the star map, resolutely ignoring its presence.
“You didn’t sleep,” he said. He knew she wouldn’t.
“I did,” she lied. “I also found gasoline for us to tank up with, and containers to bring it with us. We could off-road, or drive at night.”
Sark made a noncommittal noise, and watched her force two pieces together far too violently.
“I drew it, didn’t I.” She jammed a bit of plastic covering back onto the steering column.
“You and Nadia. Yes.”
“When?”
“A few months before you came to me for help. The intel that you remember reading, translated? Part of that came from you, too. Both of you under the influence of Sloane’s serum, combined, were more powerful than alone. You also drew the star charts, but no one knew what they were at the time.” Sark tilted his head to one side and examined the constellations. “Well. Maybe your father.”
“Why didn’t…” Sydney’s voice caught with fury and injustice. “Why didn’t either of you just tell me?”
He looked at her, amused. “Sydney. You knew. How could we have kept it from you? You were the center of it all.” Sighing, he advanced across the wide, open floor, his footsteps echoing on the concrete. “The injections were your father, though. At first, they were to keep you from sacrificing yourself.”
“I wouldn’t have done that.” Her hands had stilled on the exposed engine.
“Yes, you would have,” he contradicted her mildly. “And you still might. That’s a risk we’re both taking.”
The sour expression on her face was enough to strip paint. “And if not that, then at least you would have Julia Thorne on your hands, who certainly couldn’t fit the prophesy.”
Sark made a quiet noise of confirmation, and rested his hand on the seat of the motorcycle. “None of which at all confirms that there will even be a plague.”
Sydney startled at that. “We don’t even know – ”
“Of course not,” Sark said bitterly, crouching down next to her. Her eyes went wider, but she didn’t move. “We don’t what kind, or who might be responsible, or if it will happen at all. It could be anyone – your government. Any government. Terrorists. Natives. Some scholars believe it may have already passed, in forms of World Wars or modern disease epidemics.”
“Then why – ”
“Sloane.”
Sloane, who would use the knowledge of the impending plague to spread world-wide panic. Sloane, who could force their hand by hiding away his own daughter, and making Sydney the only known cure. Sloane, who, if pressed, could even produce the plague himself, knowing that, if all failed, he had the means and the end sitting at his right hand side.
She looked away from him, at the useless pieces of metal in her hands. Quietly, methodically, she finished reassembling the motorcycle. Sark stood, easing his weight off his heels, and tried not to pace in the anticipation.
Once she had finished, she examined her hands, smeared with oil and dirt, and wiped them resolutely on her pants. “Now what?” she said, still refusing to look at him. As if that would make it less real.
“You have two options,” he said, keeping his voice even and business-like. “You can return to your mother, and hide again. No more running.”
“Running has kept me alive so far.” She had to fight back. He could see it in her posture.
He looked at her sideways, watching her struggle with irritation and logic. “Aren’t you tired of playing Carmen Sandiego?”
“Sark, you – ”
“You probably already have the hat.”
“What’s the other option?” Her teeth were clenched and she stepped up to him, menacing. Sark suppressed a grin.
He tilted his head back, slightly, and looked down his nose at her. “Fight back.”
She stared back up at him. “Fight back.”
He nodded. “If they chase you, stop them. If they bother you, prevent them. If they try to kill you, kill them first.”
Another disturbing stretch of silence as she studied him, picking holes in the snags of his cloth to expose whatever may lie beneath. It reminded Sark of a staring contest he’d had with another girl from the orphanage, once upon a time.
“You said I’d cared for you.” The statement came challenging, and Sark tried to hide his tremor of surprise.
“You remember that conversation, do you?” The anger felt old now, and he could feel it stirring lazily in his stomach, not quite rising as high as it once would have.
She nodded slowly, still not blinking, still invading his personal space. “I don’t remember feeling that way,” she said flatly, and the statement lanced grey and soft and anticipated. Not expected, but prepared for.
“You don’t remember a lot of things,” he echoed.
“This will be the last time I say this,” she said, “but thank you.” And then she reached up and pulled his head down, her hand slipping easily in his hair, and kissed him once.
“I don’t remember,” she said, “but I believe you.”
When he managed to let her go, he pressed the keys to the motorcycle into her hand. “If you run, Sydney, run fast. We wasted a day.”
She slipped away from him like a calm memory, starting the motorcycle and listening to it run for a moment, her head cocked, hearing its inner mechanisms. Then she looked at him again. “Did you lie to me a lot, Sark?”
Free of the grave, she looked more like her old self than she had in so many months. Still pale, and too thin, and doused in nighttime. But some new layer was peeling back, and Sark could see the sun edging her through the warehouse windows.
“As much as I had to,” he said, his fingers back and curled in his pockets, his shoulders even and his voice light.
And then she was gone.
* * *
Later that day, as he walked along the wharf, Sark found Jack staring North, into the glimmering horizon.
Sark tried not to think of middle school literature symbolism studies.
“She’s gone,” he reported unnecessarily.
“Keep the money,” was Jack’s reply. “You fulfilled your end of the job.”
“I had no intention of returning it.”
They were both silent for a moment, watching birds bob gracelessly on the choppy surface near the break wall.
“She’s gone.” It wasn’t a question that greeted Sark as he crept up the boardwalk, the afternoon sun shining brightly, bleaching the sky.
“She left a few hours ago.” He could see the lines of Jack’s shoulders tense, and watched as the man willed himself not to go sprinting after her. His jacket fluttered in the sea breeze, the smell of salt heavy on both of them.
“Where?”
Sark leaned against the rail of the boardwalk. “I don’t know. We met in the warehouse, and she left from there.”
“And she knows everything she needs to?”
Sark nodded. “It’s for the best.”
“Don’t tell me what’s best for my daughter,” he said, the bite gone from his voice.
Sark eyed him passively, elegant and casual against the grit of the boardwalk backdrop. “What do we do now?”
Jack leaned farther out over the splintering wood of the railing, his shadow cast long by the sun on the dirty sands at their feet. “Now, we wait,” he said.
Sark watched him. “Will you pursue her?”
Jack seemed to contemplate him for a moment. “No. Will you?”
Turning away from the other man, Sark turned his gaze to the sea. “Given time. Yes.”
“That will, of course, defeat all our work.” Jack’s voice was filled with a highly veiled hope and a prevalent disgust.
“Perhaps,” Sark said, contemplating the way the sun glittered diamonds on the water. “I think, when it’s time…” He could feel Jack turn to look at him, the hard grooves etched in the man’s face playing havoc with his expression. Sark thought of Irina drifting away on the boat, and Sydney slipping away into the shadows, and all the times he had been sure of everything, only to have it all be wrong. He was wrong more than he liked to admit. “Perhaps,” he started again, and this time his voice was stronger, “when it is time, she will come to us.”
END