The Perfect Weapon Chapter 2008: Part 1 Section 2 of 2
Chapter 2008: Part 1 Section 2 of 2
“It’s Julian,” Dave said quickly. He could give the boy that much right now. “You didn’t like it.”
“It’s too-“
“Feminine.” Dave said it in unison with Sark. More gently he told him, “I know. You said it a million times. Only you said...” Dave lightened his voice to the tones of a child, a child from New Jersey, as he said, “It’s a girly name. I don’t like it. I don’t want it.”
Sark put one hand to his temple, feeling the throbbing caught between his brain and fingertips. Dave’s voice was rumbling through his head again. Not like thunder this time, but like an oncoming freight train. Danger, Sark thought, danger. Flee, as best you can he told himself and asked, as lightly as he could, “Is that my actual accent or-“
Dave shook his head to tell the boy he could not avoid reality and then stopped suddenly as his head swam alarmingly. He forced himself to focus. He had to tell him this truth, just in case. “You were named after your mother. Juliana.”
Sark stood up abruptly and stumbled backward until he hit the wall of the cave. He looked down at his hands and then abruptly held out the shirt he still held. He looked over his shoulder and saw Jack blocking the entrance. Damn it. "Jack, you said--"
"Help him on with it," Jack urged softly. Dave appeared concerned while Sark looked as if he might bolt any minute as he avoided looking into Dave’s face. Jack looked over his shoulder. “Sydney! Get in here!”
Sydney darted through the opening and stopped dead at the sight she found peeking over her father’s shoulder. She told herself she was unsure which was more astonishing, the slightness of the man on the pallet or the sight of Sark being helpful as he stripped the rags comprising a shirt from the man. That shadow of a man was Dave? It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be Dave. Dave was a big man. Strong. How could, what had...He looked almost...broken, lying there almost helpless. Broken - she had seen a man like that once before, she knew, and closed her eyes and her memory, whispering, “Dad?”
“Talk to him while you immobilize the leg in the splint. Sark’s probably going to be...unhelpful right now. I’m relying on you,” Jack told her firmly. “I need to go out and see your mother for a minute.” He shook her arm and Sydney opened her eyes. Sark was assisting Dave into his shirt and laying him down, taking short sharp inhalations as if he was having trouble catching his breath.
“About-“ Sydney took a shallow breath. If she filled her lungs, surely she would scream. Dave was going to make it. He had to.
“Anything to keep him in the present. Tell him who you are, but whatever you do, make sure to keep him in the present.”
“Why? If going into the past helps him-“
Jack shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about his slipping into the past. There is so much betrayal, so much pain combined with...” He looked speculatively toward Dave and Sark, who appeared engaged in a staring contest. “Right now, he’s in a lot of physical pain and I can’t knock him out completely with morphine because he wants and needs to say good bye to these people.” Jack called out, “I’ll be back in a minute or two, Dave.” He watched Dave and Sark watch each other, then gave Sydney a little push and left.
Sydney stopped and covered her mouth as she got her first full view of the damage. She bit the inside of her index finger and went forward to kneel down in the dirt. Dimly she felt her father leave as she began to talk. “Uncle Dave? It’s Sydney. You promised to take me to the Cone Castle. Remember? In the message inside Sark? He’s an idiot.”
Sydney grinned over at Sark, then lost her smile when she saw the lost look on his face as he stood up an went backward to seemingly hug the stone wall. Frowning, she turned back to Dave. His eyes were clouded with pain. She began to talk rapidly. “You do know that, don’t you? Did you make him an idiot or was he born that way? He makes me want to smack him...”
“Julian? Smack him?” Dave whispered, blinking up at Sydney. “An idiot? No...Jack is... Wait. Are you in love with Julian? Is that why you didn't go back home?”
Sark began to laugh softly. Sydney glared at him and pulled open the pack with the inflatable splint with jerky motions.
Dave shook his head and stared at her. Who was she again? “You can’t be, you know.”
“Oh, I know that!” Sydney agreed. What poor woman would ever love Sark? “Nor do I have any intentions-“
“He’s too young for you. And Jack would have to kill him-“
“Really?” Sydney looked over at Sark. She would rather look at him than see the destruction in human form that lay before her. “That would solve one problem-“
Irina closed her eyes. She closed them, she told herself, against the endless whining wind that seemed to form a wall of dust around her. She forced herself to keep the walls down, to allow herself to feel the pain. Judy had told her that pain could serve a purpose. Not always, but sometimes... One learned to keep away from hot stoves or bad choices by the resulting pain.
“But he might not kill him,” Dave continued, closing his eyes to stop the spinning. “Jack was never the jealous type. He might just walk away.”
Sydney frowned. What was Dave talking about? Was he confusing her and her mother? “I don’t think so! Why would you think that? I’m Sydney, Dave. Sydney, not Irina.”
“Your mother-“
“My mother...Oh!” Sydney frowned then her eyes opened wide. “My mother, she called Dad an idiot, but it was really...” She closed her eyes, seeing her mother lean over her father as he slept, kissing his brow, whispering, ‘Wake up, you idiot.’ And then her lips had moved and she could have sworn her mother had silently said, ‘Sweetie.’ She had thought it was one of their games, the way her mother would only say that when she thought her father was asleep.
“Mother?” Dave frowned.
Sydney was lost in her own memory. “I had forgotten that. She called him idiot instead of sweetie. I know that!”
“How utterly fascinating,” Sark said, feeling a veneer of calmness slide over him as he watched Sydney. She never changed. How comforting.
“Oh. You’re back,” Sydney said snidely. “The annoying version of Julian Sark.”
“Good.” Dave’s eyes closed. If Sark was being annoying, then he might have acquired enough self-possession to fear losing face by fleeing. Yet, anyway. “Or bad?”
“The jury is still out,” Sydney began. “I think -- and this is only a possibility - that he might have some potential. A minute amount. Well-hidden. Requiring an excavation team to locate. But--”
“Good. He’s the son I...” Dave trailed off and his eyes clouded with confusion as the woman kneeling over him with gentle hands grew hazy as the pain encroached on him once again. “Wait, you can’t be Sydney. You look like she might have, but...You’re...a grown woman. And Sydney can’t be more than a teenager. She can’t be. That much time can’t have passed. So, who are you?”
“Dave,” Sydney said gently. “You’re in pain, a lot of it and you’re getting anxious and confused. Just lie still and let me change your-“ Sydney stopped speaking as Dave’s eyes rolled back and then he slumped. Sark immediately leapt forward and put his fingertips on the pulse in Dave’s neck. He nodded at Sydney. “Dave!” Sydney called out loudly. “Come back to us. Now.”
Irina was walking away. The dust swirled around her feet.
“Where are you going?” Jack asked as he emerged from the cave. His voice was nearly sucked away by the wind. Stopping in the overhang, he took a deep breath and focused on the horizon for a moment before turning back to face Irina.
“Oh!” Irina turned and put her hand over her pounding heart. She had not heard him. He could move so damn silently for such a big man. “I was pacing. Moving back and forth and-“
“I know what pacing is.” Jack waited. “A definition is not what I need.” What did she need?
Irina stared at him and then realized what she needed to say to him, for him. At least in this moment with this man, she knew what to say. “I wasn’t running away. From you or Sydney or the situation. I was just pacing.”
“While you were waiting for...” Jack prompted.
Irina held up her cell phone and tapped her finger on the back of it until she realized what she was doing. “The last confirmation from the copter pilots. I have four additional military-grade transport helicopters on their way, with some support personnel-“
"Honey---" Jack shook his head. She wasn’t waiting so nervously for confirmation. “You could run a simple op like this in your sleep. Probably at the age of six. You’re nervous-“
“I am not.” Irina tilted her chin up and stared Jack down.
“Of course not,” Jack agreed blandly.
“Don’t use that tone of voice on me, you idiot-“
“Then don’t pretend with me, sweetie. Don’t drop that facade over your face like some theater curtain on a bad show.” Jack and Irina glared at each other until they both nodded. “Deal?” Jack asked tightly.
“Deal.” Irina turned her head toward the village. "Vaughn and Weiss are making packing plans. We'll pack up everything but the tents--"
"Leave them as an illusion?" Jack shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching out to her just yet. She would want to regain control on her own before he offered any comfort.
"Yes." Irina continued crisply as she turned her back on her husband’s alert eyes. "We'll scatter them to four different directions.” She went on to detail the evacuation. Finally, she sighed and relaxed her shoulders. “Of course, you’ll long since be on your way with Dave to the hospital. But--”
“Honey?” Jack asked as he put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. Irina made no indication that she heard or felt him. Carefully, Jack put his arms around her body and pulled her against him until he felt her lean into his chest. “Just relax for a second-“
“We have too much to do and shouldn’t you be back in there with Sydney-“ Because who knew what Dave might say to Sydney about her? Who knew what Dave believed, what they - his interrogators, his captors, Arvin - might have told him?
“This is what we have to do in this moment. Sydney and Sark will deal together with Dave and either learn how to do it or kill each other in the attempt-“
“A doubleplay.”
“Sure. Whatever.” Jack shrugged and then waited. Irina knew him. 1, 2, 3...
“Which means it’s a tripleplay, isn’t it?” Irina snapped, clamping her hands on his arms, her short nails digging through his shirt into his skin.
Jack smiled at the back of Irina’s head. Yes, she did know him. “Sydney needs to learn-“
“What? How angry Dave is with me because she has a tendency to downplay the ramifications of my actions?” Judy had not needed to tell her that truth. Irina had known and used that fact when she had returned initially. Now, she sighed, she’d have to find a way to use that truth to help her family find their way back home. Jack was doing it one way; she would find another. Just as she would find a way to Dave’s forgiveness. She would.
“Direct hit.” Jack tightened his arms around his wife. Feeling the tiny shudders of her back muscles against his chest, he rubbed his chin against Irina’s hair. “Shh. It will be okay.”
He knew what she was obsessing about - Dave’s forgiveness - but was mildly surprised that she hadn’t compartmentalized it away. Okay, not mildly surprised. He was shocked. What was going on? Who was this woman in his arms, that he knew and yet did not? Who was she becoming? Whatever, whoever, she was, he wanted her, loved her and he admitted, needed her. Even if, he spat to the side, her hair was a filthy mess that had coated his face with dust. Well, later on they could both get in the shower and... He cleared his throat. “It will all be okay as long as we are all together and-“
“Yes and I’ll find a way, I’ll find a...knife to cut through the tangled web I wove. I’ll find the perfect--“
“The perfect weapon?” Jack teased. He smiled as he felt her hiss of frustration and then the pain in his instep as she stomped on it. “You already have it.”
Irina turned slightly in his ams to look into his smug face. “You are so annoying. But I will have faith, as Judy says, that Dave will heal and he’ll...” He’ll forgive me, whoever ‘me’ is. Irina closed her eyes and slid her hands over her husband’s arms, holding her so carefully. “I was just...” Irina nodded toward the eastern horizon. “Watching.”
Watching for the future, wishing she could undo the past. She couldn’t, she knew and instead turned in the circle of Jack’s embrace to face him fully. She wrapped her own arms around him and held on tightly to the man he had been, the man he had become in her absence and the man he was becoming through sheer effort and with a little bit of help from his family. She lifted her head and touched his dusty cheek with gentle, wondering fingers. He was, simply, the man she had always loved and always would. She looked at her fingers. She loved him, dirt and all.
"Who is...there?" Dave's eyes opened slowly. I am in pain, he thought. That sounded better, more mature, than the simpler, I hurt. Which he did. Why was he sweating so much? Why was his vision blurry? Was it his eyesight or something else that was unclear, he wondered as he blinked his eyes repeatedly at the woman leaning over him. "Laura? Get out, Laura. Jack can change my bandage, not you. Or I can do it myself. Just give me the scissors. I knew it was a bad idea to recuperate at your house. I knew I should have called my mother--"
"Shhh. It's okay," Sydney said automatically to stop Dave’s rapid-fire orders, not knowing why she said it. She smoothed Dave's hair back and picked up the waterskin.
"Jack always says that to you. And Sydney."
"Does he?" Sydney froze. "He...did. He did." She smiled absently at Sark as she recovered a memory, then frowned as she saw Sark’s tense face. He was staring intently at Dave, every muscle in his body tight as if he were preparing for a fight or to...flee.
"He does. Hey, Mrs. English Teacher -“ Dave forced himself to smile, hoping that if he did so Laura would not realize how much he hurt. No, how much pain he was in. Seeing her worried face, he decided he should make a joke, even a feeble one to distract her. “Mrs. English Teacher used the past tense when the present tense was correct. What’s up with that? I thought correct tense was important. Then is not the same as now."
“Honey, about Dave-“ Jack began.
“He hates me, absolutely hates me,” Irina whispered. Fear rushed out with her words. She cursed herself for displaying it until she felt Jack’s soothing touch on her back and the love on his face. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted her to tell the truth. So, it was a doubleplay. Good.
“I don’t think he hates you now. He’s angry with you, yes. Probably not as angry with you as he once was, but even now...”
"No, now is not the same as then. But sometimes the past circles around to the present---" Sydney stuck her hair behind her ear as she looked up at Sark. He was whispering... She could not hear him, but reading his lips, she realized he was speaking Russian. Something about home.
Irina ignored Jack’s words of comfort. She just wanted to get Dave home, get him well, argue with him and, she gulped, apologize. “He must have hated me for years, you don’t just get over that-“
“Listen to me,” Jack said sharply. “At some point he did decide to trust you because he installed a fail safe in Sark that he hoped you would find on your own. If he didn’t trust you, he wouldn’t have done that. Right, Ms. Logic?”
“A fail safe? For me to find?” Irina asked, her eyes lighting up with hope. “What was it? Some line from a movie, I bet!”
Jack rolled his eyes and whispered the fail safe into her ear. He pulled back and saw the shock on her face. “He trusted you,” Jack reiterated. “On some level, with Sark, through Sark, he trusted you.”
“It was all so close....” Irina lightly banged her forehead on Jack’s shoulder. “If only I’d just come home.”
Sydney pursed her lips, analyzing Sark’s demeanor, his whispered words about home, the fear in his eyes. He appeared lost, as if he were spinning out of control. Great. Dave was justifiably slipping in and out of the present time and now Sark was losing it? In Russian? She didn’t have time for this! She slapped a hand on Sark’s arm and called out in Russian, "Sark! Pozhaluista! Ja-“
"You're not Laura," Dave said abruptly in a low tone so pregnant with danger that the hair on the back of Sydney's neck stood up and Sark snapped out of his spiral downward. “You’re Irina,” he grunted and switched immediately to Russian. “Are you here to gloat over my foolishness? Do you have my finger and my ring? Would you like to see another finger? Would you, Irina Derevko?”
“He did trust me eventually, that’s true. But once he finds out how long it’s been, how long it took me to come back to you... And what they must have done to him to get him to agree to run the Soviet program? Dave would not break easily. It must have been something I could only wish was unimaginably horrible. But knowing the people who interrogated me, who ran the program, I can imagine... He’s less forgiving than you are, Jack.” Irina’s eyes skewed down the hill toward Vaughn, who was gesturing toward the village as he talked with Weiss. “It makes me realize or...perhaps what I realized was the foolishness of my own assumptions-“
“Well, you know what they say about the word assume,” Jack said lightly. “It makes an ass out of you-“
Sydney ignored the danger in Dave’s words and her father’s warning to keep Dave in the present. This was Dave, after all; he wouldn’t actually hurt her or her mother. She sighed and tugged on Sark’s arm, urging him to help her with the splint. Sark shook his head and rubbed his hand across his face and then knelt forward to assist.
“I asked you a question, Comrade!” Dave snarled in Russian.
“Dave...” Sydney whispered, trying to brush her hand across his brow until he slapped her hand away.
“Do NOT touch me.” Dave stared at his hand with the missing finger and then held it up in front of Sydney’s face. “Why are you here? Was it all a plot between you and Arvin? Tell me you weren’t that lost! Do you know what they did with my finger? Did Arvin use it and the ring to convince Jack that I was dead?”
“Yes, but Dave-“ Sydney looked away from the trembling hand in front of her face. Dave wasn’t strong enough to hurt anyone, she decided and ignored it and his words. It was hot in here, contributing to his fever. They needed to move it and get those kids in here to say goodbye quickly. She nodded and Sark carefully lifted Dave’s leg as Sydney placed the splint under it. She ignored as well the murmurs of restive children in the tunnel, even as Dave’s head turned toward the sound.
Dave’s head jerked away from the voices of children that seemed to echo around his brain like a nightmare. Next would come the scream and then a gurgle, then a rattle, then silence. No. Never again. “Do you know what they did next? Do you care? I bet you don’t, you- shit! Damn it!“ Dave let out a sudden sharp groan as Sydney’s gentle hands placing him correctly in the splint inadvertently caused him pain. “Do you know...”
Dave clenched his teeth and his fists. “Do you know how they convinced me to cooperate...” He spat the word with what little saliva he had in his mouth. His voice dropped to a deep, guttural growl. “Cooperate with them? Was it your idea or Arvin’s to use the child? Or is it SOP for the Soviets to kill a problem child to ensure cooperation? That’s why I had to protect Julian, you know. Because, never again, never again--”
Sark’s mouth fell open slightly and he looked automatically toward Sydney, whose face mirrored his own shock. “Jack told you not to let Dave slip back into the past,” Sark hissed frantically as the air in the alcove changed from close and stultifying to electric with danger. Dave was loving, kind and patient, but Dave could be ruthless, Sark knew in that instant when instinct and repressed memory combined in the need for survival.
“Dave!” Sydney spoke sharply, belatedly realizing that she needed to halt Dave’s pell mell rush toward a critical moment in his past. “Stop it. She knew nothing of your capture or anything else. Be rational...” She trailed off as a look appeared on Dave’s face that she had never seen before, but one with which his teammates would have been familiar. Coldness, sheer icy coldness and determination.
“Never again....” Dave mouthed the words rather than said them and his fingers twitched. All four of them.
Looking down, Sark reared back as dim memory of rapid movement and ruthless action raced through his mind. He had seen that hand move quickly and decisively before. When, why? As he struggled to handle the flash of past, he blinked and nearly missed the present. “Danger!” Sark cried out a second too late.
“Aack!” Sydney squeaked as Dave’s hand suddenly wrapped around her neck.
"Dave, let go," Sark ordered in English, reaching out to pry Dave's fingers from Sydney's throat. “It’s SYDNEY! Not Irina. It’s Sydney! This is now, not then. LET GO!”
TBC at Chapter 2008: Part 2 section 1 of 3