I am a busy bee!
There were girls that were trouble, and there were girls that were trouble. Of these, Sydney Bristow was the former; Julia Thorne, the latter.
"Were you ever a little girl?" Simon drawled lazily one evening over a shared dinner of straight vodka. "I can't see you as a tea set or doll house enthusiast."
"Aren't you sweet," she had replied with a snarl that sounded like a caress.
He ignored her jibe. "The Queen of Hearts," he announced, and this had shocked her into sitting up.
"Keep talking like that and there'll be no more for you."
His smile was feral. "Come, love, think. It's not your enchanting disposition."
She had rolled her eyes. "Enlighten me."
His dark eyes gleamed, and she felt a faint flicker of... something, something Sydney. She squashed it down.
" 'Off with their heads.' "
Appropriate, she later thought, that he should use that particular character, and that saying. She barely heard him saying what he thought the fate of her dolls must have been as a child.
"I never was a child," she declared haughtily when he had finished. "I was born like this."
He had taken her then, pulling him to her to claim her. "That's good," he said into her ear, his tongue teasing her. "A child like you would've had the spirit beaten out of her."
She had arched her neck and made her mind empty, effectively stifling Sydney.
He had been showing off, as he liked to. They were a handsome couple- slick, well-dressed, and beautiful. She'd go out with him in his new car, he'd ruin some new dress of hers, and what's more he'd enjoy it, just to have the pleasure of buying her something else, to prove that he could. He was a child in that way- eager. He wanted to keep her, and this was his way.
"There is nothing I have that I couldn't replace," She had said coldly to him, pushing away his pawing hands.
He took his hands back, and Sydney could see that he was wounded, but she didn't care. "That's hardly true, Jules. You've got-"
"Don't say that I've got you! I haven't, no one has."
His mouth turned into a wry grin. "Wouldn't dream of it, darling. I was going to say that you had your wit, as your charm is faulty. And your mouth."
He'd swooped down to capture it, and she let him. "You're growing soft," she panted. "Almost down to sweet nothings."
His breath was unsteady as hers. "Your heart is pounding. You're hardly stone."
"Your hand is-"
"I know where it is."
Sydney peeked out fearfully, and Julia writhed. "I don't need you to- I don't need you-"
"To what?"
"I don't need you."
His face was inscrutible. "Never assumed that you did, babe. Wouldn't dare."
In the dark, when she is neither Sydney nor Julia, nor anything at all other than some faded shade of grey, she wonders at her actions and emotions as both with a detached, clinical view, slicing open her decisions with a scapel and examining them in the stark light of objectivity.
Darkness is only the absence of light.