Foul-Weather Friend, Chapter Thirteen, Part One
Title: Foul-Weather Friend
Author: waking_epiphany (Jamie)
Rating: HARD R (NOTE THE RATING CHANGE), for language and sexy situations
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me; they belong to J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot.
Pairings: Sark/Sydney, implied past Sydney/Vaughn, implied past Sark/Lauren, implied past Sark/Alison.
Timeline: Estimating that the end of season 4 ended in the month of May, consider this to start in July of that same summer.
Summary: After suffering series of debilitating headaches and blackouts, Julian Sark takes a doctor-recommended leave from the second oldest profession in the world, espionage, only to be pulled right back into the thick of things at the arrival of a strange, scarlet envelope at his home. It contains intel concerning his longtime mentor, Irina Derevko, and there is only one other person who can help him find her. Sydney Bristow has left her life as a CIA operative to start a new life in anonymity after her sister, Nadia, is left in a coma and her fiancé, Michael Vaughn, is killed by Prophet 5, a mysterious terrorist group. She is trying to pick up the pieces of her shattered existence when a familiar enemy and sometimes associate crashes back into her life. Reluctantly, they must work together to save something invaluably important to the both of them and in the in the process, maybe even save each other.
Author’s Note: It's almost the end, folks! Many long years and we have this chapter and then chapter 14 and then THE END. Sad! I know it takes months and months for me to update, but I am going to miss this story and all of you very much. Enough of the maudlin crap, on with the story! Parts one and two of chapter thirteen features blatant (so, so blatant) homages to the movies "Kill Bill" and "Closer", Sydney vs. the hospitality manager, Jack and Irina play house, and some hot man on man action. As always, soundtrack at the end of part two.
Sydney stared at the pregnancy test. She had finally taken the stick out of the box, though her hands had been shaking the entire time. Sure, she could deactivate a nuclear weapon without the shakes no problem. She wasn't afraid of drug lords or international terrorists or serial killers but she was afraid of peeing on a stick.
Afraid of what, exactly? Sydney bit her lip so hard it bled. The copper penny tang tasted like fear. She traced the argyle pattern on the hotel comforter, hoping the repetitive action would somehow quiet the millions of thoughts racing through her head. There was one that kept pushing itself to the forefront, something that wouldn't be ignored. It was his name pulsing in time with her racing heart.
Sark, Sark, Sark, Sark.
If there was life growing inside her, half of it belonged to him. It had been eight weeks since the night they had been together in Paris. It had been seven weeks since Sydney had left Sark broken and bleeding on that white sand beach in Venezuela; leaving him to chase a man that was already dead. Now, she spent her every waking hour searching for the two of them: the man who had been the father of her now deceased unborn child and the man who gave her the life that could possibly be growing inside her right now.
Her period had been sporadic at best since the miscarriage. Her doctor had told her that the chances of Sydney conceiving again were very slim. She hadn't bothered with birth control. She felt too broken, too empty to even bother with dating. And, of course, Sydney Bristow would never have sex without a relationship. She had slept with Will, but there were real feelings and a history there. Same with Noah. Sex with someone for the sheer pleasure, regardless of consequences or repercussions, was a totally foreign concept. The only man she was seeing on a regular basis was Sark, and she would never have sex with Sark. That was totally out of the question.
Until it wasn't. It surprised her even now that she hadn't even considered protection when she slept with Sark. There had been no conscience reminding her to take precaution, to be careful. There had only been loneliness, need, and passion. Her practicality and thoughtfulness had been thrown clean out the window when she finally felt his hands on her and she surrendered to him.
In the months since, she had been so bent on revenge, so focused on finding Vaughn and Sark that one or two missed periods did not even register. It wasn't until last night that she realized something was wrong. She had followed up on a lead regarding Vaughn's whereabouts in Moscow, only to find an empty warehouse. Empty, but not abandoned. Sydney wondered, later, why she didn't feel remorse about killing anymore. But, with only a flesh wound and six dead Prophet Five members to show for her troubles, she did not dwell on the steady downward spiral of her morality. She had been more concerned with the gut-wrenching pain in her abdomen as she hurled into the toilet on the plane. Twice.
Sydney did not get motion sickness. She had spent the majority of her adult life traveling in airplanes and had never experienced such intense nausea...except when she had been pregnant.
Steeling herself, she stood up and walked purposefully to the bathroom. She read the directions one last time before pulling her pants down, sitting on the toilet, and began to relieve herself on the pink pregnancy stick. She was finishing up when the doorbell of her hotel room rang. Frowning, she cleaned herself up and took herself and the pregnancy test to the door.
Sydney peered out of the peephole, to see a grinning face surrounded by large red hair and a basket of flowers.
"Who is it?" She called through the door. She peered through the fisheye lens of the peephole and saw a woman with bright pink lipstick and lots of bright red hair.
"This is Sharon Paul. I'm the hospitality manager of this hotel, to give you a welcoming basket from the management."
Sydney sighed. "That's nice," she said, and in doing so dropped the pregnancy test on the floor. She bent down to pick it up. "If you could just leave it by the door..."
The door above her exploded in a splintering barrage of wood and shotgun pellets. Sydney vaulted over the bed and grabbed her loaded pistol. Sydney watched as a plump, prim looking woman in a business suit kicked her door open with her sensible pumps. By the time Sharon had located Sydney's position on the floor by the bed, Sydney had her firearm pointed at the woman's face.
"You're here to kill me?" Sydney asked, drawing Sharon's attention to her position. She saw the woman slightly taken aback at being caught in Sydney's gun sight.
"Well, I didn't bring this gun with me to tickle you," Sharon replied sardonically. "Sorry, nothing personal."
"Well, let me tell you something. Sharon, is it?" Sydney said, her grip on her gun never wavering. The woman shrugged, as if the name was unimportant. "You might get a shot off at me, but not before I put a bullet between your eyes."
"I think I like my odds," Sharon said modestly. "I have this huge ass shotgun and you have that dinky little pistol. You could miss."
"I never miss," Sydney said seriously. "So I think we should talk before either of us makes a mistake."
"It's not a mistake that I'm here," Sharon told Sydney. "It's just business. No offense."
"Please excuse me if I don't accept that as justification," Sydney replied sarcastically. But her voice softened. "Listen, Sharon? Before this gets out of hand, I need you to do something."
"Yeah, that's likely to happen," Sharon scoffed.
"The minute before you offered me that lovely hospitality basket - "
"It's has bath beads in it," Sharon cut in. "It's actually pretty nice. I'm taking that shit with me when I go and treating myself to a nice bubble bath. I think I deserve it."
Sydney sighed exasperatedly. "You're killing me, Sharon."
"That's pretty much the point," Sharon said, smiling a perfect smile.
"The minute before you offered me the basket," Sydney repeated. "I was taking a pregnancy test. It's by the door. I could be pregnant."
"Bullshit," Sharon spat.
"Any other day you would be completely right," Sydney said with grave chuckle. "But not today. It's there by the door. Pick it up and tell me what it says."
"Ew, it has your pee on it," Sharon said squeamishly.
"You came here to kill me and you're a little iffy about some pee?" Sydney asked incredulously. "Pick it up, Princess, and tell me what it says."
Sharon exhaled loudly, indicating what an inconvenience this whole escapade was for her, but bent at the knees to pick up the pregnancy test. She held it in between two fingers like it was a repulsive bug and peered down at it.
"What am I looking at?"
"The instructions are right there," Sydney said, gesturing with her gun next to Sharon. "At your feet. Just pick it up and tell me what it says."
Sharon bent down, picked up the instructions, and in the one second that she was reading them Sydney popped a shot off into Sharon's shoulder. Sharon dropped the shotgun with a cry and fell to the ground, clutching her wounded shoulder. Sydney quickly jumped up and kicked the shotgun away.
"You bitch!" Sharon yelled, tears streaming out her eyes. "You fucking bitch!"
"Yes, I'm the fucking bitch here," Sydney replied sardonically, standing over Sharon.
"I think I'm laying on your pee stick," Sharon whined and Sydney rolled her eyes.
"Who sent you to kill me? Sydney demanded.
"Yeah, like I'm going to tell you," Sharon scoffed with tears in her eyes.
"You're going to tell me or I'll continue my target practice on more important regions of your body," Sydney assured her. "Like your kneecaps. Or your face."
"Listen lady," Sharon spat. "I am an assassin. A damn good one, despite this little faux pas. I get paid by a lot of different people for a lot of different hits. It doesn't matter to me who they are as long as I get my money."
"Well, this time around, your employee is of great concern to me, and it should be for you, since I could redecorate this room with your brain matter," Sydney said conversationally.
"Ew. Gross, dude," Sharon replied.
Sydney jammed the shaft of her pistol against Sharon's temple.
"Who...hired...you?"
"It was this whacked out group on some sort of crusade," Sharon said, wincing as more blood seeped out of her shoulder. "They've been systematically taking out people for the past few years. You're just one of thousands."
"The name, Sharon."
"The Noble Blade," Sharon said. "Sounds like a gay club to me, but they mean business."
Sydney felt dread wash over her.
"Like I need this on top of everything else," Sydney lamented softly.
"Well, according to them, you're this, like, unstoppable, unconscionable killing machine," Sharon supplied in a helpful tone. "And the world would be better off without you. I, for one, now agree with them."
"Gee, thanks Sharon," Sydney breathed, not really listening to the assassin. The Noble Blade was closing in, taking out all the Project Christmas children. She was only one person and they were so very many. She would have to keep running and fighting...forever. The prospect was exhausting and Sydney wasn't sure how long she'd be able to keep them at bay...or how long she wanted to.
She looked down and put a hand to her abdomen. She had no choice. She had to fight. For herself. And for whoever else might come along.
"Ok, Sharon, I have a plan," Sydney told the woman. "You're going to go back to the Noble Blade and tell them you carried out the mission. Tell them I'm dead, you'll get your money, everyone's happy."
"I won't be happy when my employer finds out you're still alive, babe," Sharon said. "And when they do I'll be as dead as you're supposed to be and money won't do me any good."
"Well, it's either we go with my plan," Sydney said plainly. "Or I kill you right now. At least with my plan you get a fighting chance."
"There's no way they'll believe it," Sharon said, wincing in pain.
"Make them believe it," Sydney replied. "Now get out of here, before the cops get here. And don't think that I won't be able to find you if you go back on our little deal. The Noble Blade is right about one thing: I am a killing machine. I'll find you and you'll as dead as a doornail."
Sydney backed away, but kept the gun pointed at Sharon. She watched the zaftig woman struggle to her feet. Sydney grabbed a towel from the counter and threw it at her, and watched as Sharon pressed it against her wound.
"Now get the hell out of here," Sydney bade her.
Sharon let out an angry sort of grunt and turned to go. In the doorway she stopped and turned.
"So were you trying to get pregnant or was it a big, colossal mistake?"
Emotion threatened to choke Sydney speechless.
"I wasn't trying...but it wasn't a mistake. Not really."
"Well," Sharon said, issuing a smirk at Sydney. "You won't have to worry about babies getting in the way of all that killing you're going to do. You're not pregnant. Have a nice life, bitch."
With a turn of her considerable hips, Sharon left the room, leaving her blood and a stunned Sydney in her wake. She hardly felt the gun slip from her grip and clatter on the floor. She couldn't bear to look at the test herself and turned away from it like it was a cold, dead thing. She heard the police sirens wailing in the distance but they were a distant threat compared to the aching hole she felt in her empty womb. She clutched her belly and sank to the floor. She knew she should be moving, leaving this place of blood behind, but her legs wouldn't work and her lungs couldn't find oxygen in the air.
She should be happy. Hell, she should be ecstatic. A kid carrying both her and Sark's DNA would bound to be some kind of killing machine, something Sydney would never wish on anyone, let alone her own child. Sark wasn't cut out to be any kind of father figure. Even if he wasn't a paid gun for hire, his own father issues made him pretty much the worst idea of a dad Sydney could think of. It would kill her to cut him out of her life now but she would have to. There was no normal life for this child if Sark was in it. For Sydney, growing up as the child of a dead mother and an absent father, she knew she wouldn't force that life on anyone. It was a cruel existence and only served to make her hard and cold. She wasn't fit to be anyone's mother. Between the two of them, with all the blood on their hands and ice in their hearts, they would ruin their child before it even had a chance.
But then she thought about Sark's eyes. Those deep, fathomless, blue eyes like bits of sky torn from the heavens. They knew her, he knew her, and those eyes were the key to her own damn downfall. She saw those eyes on a child, with his blond hair and her prominent ears. It would have been a boy, of course, with her precocious ways and his mischievous grin. She could see the child, really see him and he was a beautiful boy. Her heart and womb ached with the loss of the son Sark never gave her...and would never know she almost had.
He never would be good enough for her. She would never be cruel enough for him. He would never be the one for her. She could never shoot enough, kill enough, bleed enough, do enough to truly save him. But she missed him. God, it hurt, how much she missed him.
Later, on the nightly news, the shooting at the Park Barrington Hotel was at the top of the hour. Blood was left at the scene and a woman was seen fleeing the premises. Some said she was a blond. Others said a brunette. Some witnesses claimed she held a maid hostage before shooting her way out of the hotel. Others assert she paid off the police to let her go free. The one detail that all the witnesses could agree was that as the woman ran through the hotel, she was crying.
* * *
"Jack?"
Irina pretended to have just woken up but, truthfully, she had been awake for hours, cataloguing every movement, every twitch, every breath Jack had taken since he decided he would leave. He hadn't told her; he wouldn't, not until he gathered up the willpower to go. She had known he would leave anyway. The hitch of his breath, the flush of his skin, the barely contained energy bubbling under his usually cold surface, Irina knew it all. And she knew he was going to do something very, very stupid.
"Yes, Irina?"
Jack shifted under the covers, reaching outside the bed for his clothes. He wasn't sure what he would tell Irina about what he had decided. Really, he didn't need to tell her anything, she probably already knew. But it would be only right to at least give her some idea, since they had been on this journey together. It would be more than what she would do for him, but hadn't expected any less.
"Where are you going?"
"Honestly? I'm not sure."
Jack shrugged on his pants and looked to the chair for his shirt. His gaze went to his former wife, still naked and beautiful under the covers. The sex had began again quite naturally after they devised the "Messenger" scheme. They had stayed together, for the most part, and had stayed under the radar so the kids and Prophet Five wouldn't find them. In their hiding the two former spouses had found the passionate and yet familiar path back to one another, though neither of them held any unrealistic expectations of the what the relationship was. Not that that mad made things any less complicated.
"Are you going after Sydney? Or the boys?"
"If I find the boys, Sydney will come," Jack replied evenly, feeling the reassuring weight of the pistol in the pocket of his pants. Not the safest place to keep it but it was handy and he knew better than to sleep with Irina without a firearm close by.
"We've been trying to locate them for weeks," Irina said, her hand slipping under her pillow to where she kept her gun. She didn't think she would have to shoot Jack, not really, but it was better to be safe than sorry. "What makes you think you'll have any luck?"
"Just a hunch," Jack replied, in his usual clinical and cryptic manner.
"I thought we decided to let Sydney deal with this on her own," Irina said, letting the covers slip a little. Jack knew she did it on purpose, to distract him. Not that that stopped him from looking anyway.
"We did," Jack agreed, sitting on the chair in the hotel room to put on his shoes. He was aware that she had her hand on his firearm but he didn't think she would shoot him. Well, maybe she would, but not somewhere where it would kill him. "But I can't sit back anymore and watch her suffer. Don't you think she's suffered enough?"
"No," Irina said callously. She fixed him with a smoldering look but it was lost on Jack now. "Suffering has made her strong. If you kill him for her, she'll never get closure and she'll hate you for it."
"Maybe," Jack said, pulling the gun out now. It didn't hurt to show Irina he meant business. "But I can't stand not doing anything while she suffers."
"You always had that fatherly instinct," Irina said, eyeing Jack's pistol. "You'll always be a better parental figure than me Jack."
"That's not exactly hard to do," Jack replied without humor. Irina fixed him with an exacting glare but continued.
"That being said, that doesn't mean I don't know what's best for Sydney. You'll lose her, Jack. And if you do, you'll have nothing left."
"Are you saying you don't want to stick around and play house with me?"
"Be serious, Jack," Irina warned. All pretense cast aside, she pulled her gun out, too. She did not aim but kept it in her hand above the covers, so Jack could see.
"This has got to end," Jack said, standing and approaching the hotel room door. "And if she hates me for it, well, it wouldn't be the first time. She won't thank me, but she'll be free of them. And her safety is all that matters."
"Them?" Irina's hand gripped her firearm tightly. She did not hesitate when she brought it up and aimed it at Jack. "Kill Michauex if you must but don't kill Sark. Part of the whole "Messenger" plot was to protect him. He's my responsibility and I will not let you kill him."
"He's a liability," Jack replied, aiming his gun at her now. "He has, and will continue to put her in danger."
"He saved Sydney," Irina said angrily. "In more ways than one. She cares for him, don't you see that?"
"Oh, I see it," Jack said in a low voice. "Which makes me all the more determined to take him out. I know you feel a maternal responsibility for him, but think of your actual offspring. The one you should actually care about. He'll be the death of her and that I cannot abide."
"Don't do this, Jack," Irina warned in a low, serious tone. "I will rain hell down on you if you take him away from her."
"Then we are at an impasse," Jack said in a monotone voice. "I won't let her be dragged down with him. Sydney will have a normal life, even if I have to kill everyone that gets in my way. Including you and your precious Sark."
Jack opened the door. He turned his back on her, fully knowing she could, and probably would, shoot him.
"Jack...please."
He did turn around then, just to look at her one last time. She still was and, he knew would continue to be, the most beautiful woman in the world to him. She was deadly and striking but in this moment he found her to be strangely vulnerable in her loyalty to a man she still saw as a tow-headed six year old boy.
"If it makes a difference, I am sorry," Jack said, with more emotion Irina had seen in him in many years. "I don't like hurting you, but in the end, I will always choose Sydney. Goodbye Irina."
"Goodbye Jack."
He shut the door quietly, as if not to disturb her, but Irina was already disturbed. She continued pointing the gun at the door but, in the end, she knew she already had lost. She knew why she didn't shoot him but she hated herself for feeling it. She was so angry she didn't even notice the single tear she had shed for the son she never had.