Author: Amisha
Disclaimer: If I owned Alias, do you really think I would be posting this here?
Rating: I don’t really understand American ratings so I’ll just say PG-13 to be on the safe side.
Timeline: 5 years after end of season 3. None of season 4 has occurred.
Summary: ‘Everybody saw her. It wasn’t that. It was that nobody remembered her.’
A/N - this was written for the Sarkney Holiday Challenge but I didn’t finish it on time . It hasn’t been beta’d so there are probably loads of mistakes and it probably doesn’t quite make sense in some parts. Please feel free to point out mistakes or make criticisms. I’ll post part 2 of this if I get enough feedback. Thank you!
Blood on a Cold Christmas Morning
Everybody saw her. It wasn’t that. It was that nobody remembered her. Not her and not the man she was with. They remembered a beautiful woman with a handsome man. They remembered that look of sorrow in her eyes and that accentless voice. You may wonder how it’s possible to have a voice without any accent, but that’s what they all said. They remembered all those things but they did not remember her. Not enough to give a description. Not enough to help find her.
There was no pattern in the places she popped up. They were randomly spaced out across the world. She was never just an English teacher. No, that would be too obvious. She had many different jobs; in some places she had none.
Some would wonder how she had never really been found. She was the most well-known agent in the history of international intelligence. Her face was known in just about every country imaginable. And her companion? He was one of the three most notorious criminals ever to poison the earth. Yet the two remained unseen. No one ever knew where they were until they weren’t there anymore. Some would also wonder why they didn’t just stay in one place.
Years came and went. Christmas was near and Jack Bristow seemed to be heading towards a lonely one again. Five years he had searched the world now, trying to make amends to her and himself. Five years he had to regret his mistakes and the man was growing old, and he was missing his daughter. He was not a man to be messed with, never had been, but it was said throughout the CIA offices that he would not be so bitter if he had his little girl back. Whispers across the offices also said that he was the reason she had left.
But as searches and holiday celebrations continued, Sydney Bristow sat at her dresser at her home in London. He stood behind her, brushing her hair. He knelt down and placed soft kisses on her neck. She let out a soft moan and turned around, taking the brush from his hands. Sydney sat, staring into the mirror, brushing her hair. Strokes regular, like the beating of her heart.
‘Sydney? I think you’re hair is done. Get your dress on. We should be going.’
She smiled at him and dropped the hairbrush onto the dresser. He left the room as she slipped out of her bath robe and into the little red number she had chosen for the Christmas party being held at the local club where they went dancing. He walked in as she was slipping on the matching red sandals. She could feel his eyes on her as she stood up and let him admire her.
His eyes ran over the silk clinging onto her curves and her bare legs. They travelling onto her face and caught a glimpse of the mischievous glint in his eye she had come to know so well. He glanced at his watch and his lips curled into his signature smirk.
‘It took you a while to get ready. It won’t take you as long to get dressed the second time, will it love?’ he took a step towards her.
She smiled. ‘We’ll be late,’ Sydney took a step back and bumped into the dresser.
‘Who cares?’ he closed the distance between them and his lips found hers. Her arms left her sides and wrapped themselves round his neck.
The brush fell onto the floor.
* * *
She had thought he was in prison. That’s why she hadn’t expected to see him. Sometimes she wondered why he was there, if he had been seeking her that day. It hadn’t mattered to her. He was a familiar face and while she had despised everything he stood for, she believed that if they were both running, why not run together?
Their relationship had evolved over the four years they had been running together. She had hated him at first. Then they had become friends, and now they were more .She did love him, very much so. But she would never tell him, and he was the same. The risk of rejection was too great; the risk of everything was too great.
One might wonder why her eyes were so full of sorrow, when she was so much in love. Truth was, as happy as she felt being with him, her past haunted her. She saw old faces everywhere and there was a part of her, a part that had disappeared many years ago, which she regretted losing. She missed her innocence, her goodness. Even her ignorance.
* * *
Eric Weiss entered the room to find his best friend throwing clothes into a suitcase. Michael Vaughn had been trying to find Sydney Bristow almost as hard as Jack Bristow had for the past five years. Weiss worried that he might lose it one day. Vaughn didn’t really care if he did.
‘Where are you running off to?’
‘I got a call from a contact of mine. There’s been a sighting in London. My flight’s in two hours.’
‘You really think she’s there?’
‘I don’t know. But if she is, I’m going to find her. And Eric? Don’t mention this to Jack? I don’t want him to get his hopes up. Who knows what could happen to him if he was let down again.’ With that, Vaughn hurried out the door off to the airport. Weiss didn’t mention that Vaughn was in the same danger that Jack was of being let down by the thought of finding Sydney. Weiss knew that Vaughn already knew the dangers.
* * *
Sark had had a hamster once. Irina had bought her for him on his sixteenth birthday. He had found it quite odd that she would buy the boy she had been using as an assassin for the past year a hamster, but he had taken it at once. Acts of kindness from Irina were rare and he had learned to accept them when they came.
She had ordered him to name her. He had stared at her white fur and hypnotising eyes. That’s how he’d always imagined her. Like Snow White. He’d only ever seen a few photos and heard a couple of stories about her when he was extra good. He named her Sydney. Irina had not looked pleased.
He remembered the first night. The squeaky wheel had prevented him from getting any sleep. And yet, he hadn’t minded. The thought of having someone around, even if that someone wasn’t human, meant too much to him for him to get pissed. After all, he was still a boy, and all boys, even ice cold assassins, needed friends.
Little Julian had become rather attached to Sydney. He played with her at every free moment he had. The squeaky wheel became necessary for his sleep. Then he had found out the truth. It was a test. One morning, Irina asked him to bring down Sydney’s cage. When he had done so, she had asked him chop up the little hamster into pieces. He hesitated. He had forgotten how much whips hurt. Older Julian shuddered in his memory. He had cried the whole way through it. The poor innocent hamster. Poor innocent Sydney. He remembered the blood that had spilled onto his perfect white shirt. Of all the murders he had ever committed, that had been the hardest.
He had learnt the lesson Irina had been trying to teach him. Never get attached. Attachment brings you pain. Be capable of doing whatever is necessary, no matter what the cost. He used to wonder what he would have been like if it hadn’t been for that little hamster, if he hadn’t closed himself off. It didn’t matter. There was no going back now. Sometimes he still heard the wheel squeaking in his mind, still felt the blood soaking his shirt. Still felt the tears running down his cheeks and his heart pounding in his chest.
He shook those thoughts out of his mind. He had more important things to think about. Sark was throwing a Christmas Eve party for Sydney. They didn’t really know very many people so he just invited all the neighbours. It didn’t really matter. Sydney just needed cheering up, and he had the perfect Christmas gift for her.
* * *
Michael Vaughn rushed towards his taxi. He was shivering with cold. Damn him for forgetting his coat when he left in such a hurry. He had forgotten that London was much colder than LA, especially at this time of the year. It didn’t matter. Soon he would find Sydney and he wouldn’t be cold anymore.
* * *
The guests milled around the living room. Dozens of semi-familiar looking people greeted Joshua and Sophia Guevara, the young hosts of the party. They smiled as they saw how in love the newlyweds were. The women envied her as he wrapped his arms around her waist and waved a small piece of mistletoe above her head. The men envied him as she placed a soft kiss on his lips.
‘I have a present for you. Do you want it now?’ he murmured into her ear.
‘Present? What is it?’ she smiled, her expression like a child’s.
He walked over to the Christmas tree and picked up a large square-shaped package. He handed it to her and looked at her, waiting for her to rip open the wrapping paper. She opened it and looked at the canvas. She could hear gasps of admiration coming from her guests but all she could see was the beautiful picture in her hands. The depth in her eyes, brown amidst the flurry of colours.
‘I remember you once told me that you loved the Mona Lisa, but it was too dark and depressing to look at. When we were in France, I had this street painter re-paint it in pastel colours. Do you like it?’
‘I love it,’ she looked into his eyes. ‘Thank you.’
* * *
Sark looked around the room. He was bored. Sydney was in one of her sociable moods and he couldn’t bring himself to actually find anyone in the room besides her remotely interesting. Bankers, lawyers, and accountants. Who seriously gave a damn?
That was when he heard the sound of shattering glass. He looked over to Sydney and saw her standing there, her shattering champagne flute at her feet. Her eyes were wide and staring. He moved to look at what she was seeing. He caught a glimpse of a man before he was gone. He rushed to be beside his love.
‘Are you okay Sy- Sophia?
She turned towards him. Tears were running down her face and the look in her eyes was wild, almost like a hunted animal. Then again, that is what she was. ‘Did you see him? Tell me you saw him!’
He looked at her sadly, the look in his eyes almost pitiful, ‘yes love. I saw him – this time.’ His voice was in a whisper, only heard by him and Sydney. He turned to their guests, ‘I’m very sorry. We’re going to have to cut this party short. My wife is feeling unwell.’
* * *
Sark waited until they were all gone before he went out the back garden. He was standing there, just like he had expected.
‘Agent Vaughn.’ The cold British accent was back and for a moment, just one moment, he felt like that little boy with the dead hamster once again.
‘Sark.’ The older man nodded to him.
‘You shouldn’t have come you know. She can’t take it.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Vaughn turned to Sark with interest. If there was one thing they both cared about, it was the safety of the woman they both loved.
‘Why do you think we’ve been running all these years? You never found us. I doubt you would have, in most of those places. She kept seeing you. You and Jack mostly. Sometimes she would see Dixon or Tipin. She would see you and have these breakdowns. Sydney would cry and scream, I had to take her away from those places. I would behind something each time to take you there while I found somewhere safe for us to relocate to. It drove her crazy, what happened with Jack. Knowing that her whole life had been controlled by her father, she couldn’t take it.’
Vaughn nodded. ‘I should go then. Don’t worry, I’ll tell everyone that it was another dead end. I’ll try and get them off the case. Just- is it okay if I try to talk to her or a minute? God, I can’t believe I just asked your permission to talk to Sydney.’
Sark seemed to be on the verge of smiling for a moment, but it was gone so fast that Vaughn was unsure of whether he had imagined it. ‘You can try. Just don’t push her.’ He watched the older man enter his home and closed his eyes, hoping Sydney would make it through this.
End of Part One – Please R & R for part two to be posted.
Amisha
Xxx
Disclaimer: If I owned Alias, do you really think I would be posting this here?
Rating: I don’t really understand American ratings so I’ll just say PG-13 to be on the safe side.
Timeline: 5 years after end of season 3. None of season 4 has occurred.
Summary: ‘Everybody saw her. It wasn’t that. It was that nobody remembered her.’
A/N - this was written for the Sarkney Holiday Challenge but I didn’t finish it on time . It hasn’t been beta’d so there are probably loads of mistakes and it probably doesn’t quite make sense in some parts. Please feel free to point out mistakes or make criticisms. I’ll post part 2 of this if I get enough feedback. Thank you!
Blood on a Cold Christmas Morning
Everybody saw her. It wasn’t that. It was that nobody remembered her. Not her and not the man she was with. They remembered a beautiful woman with a handsome man. They remembered that look of sorrow in her eyes and that accentless voice. You may wonder how it’s possible to have a voice without any accent, but that’s what they all said. They remembered all those things but they did not remember her. Not enough to give a description. Not enough to help find her.
There was no pattern in the places she popped up. They were randomly spaced out across the world. She was never just an English teacher. No, that would be too obvious. She had many different jobs; in some places she had none.
Some would wonder how she had never really been found. She was the most well-known agent in the history of international intelligence. Her face was known in just about every country imaginable. And her companion? He was one of the three most notorious criminals ever to poison the earth. Yet the two remained unseen. No one ever knew where they were until they weren’t there anymore. Some would also wonder why they didn’t just stay in one place.
Years came and went. Christmas was near and Jack Bristow seemed to be heading towards a lonely one again. Five years he had searched the world now, trying to make amends to her and himself. Five years he had to regret his mistakes and the man was growing old, and he was missing his daughter. He was not a man to be messed with, never had been, but it was said throughout the CIA offices that he would not be so bitter if he had his little girl back. Whispers across the offices also said that he was the reason she had left.
But as searches and holiday celebrations continued, Sydney Bristow sat at her dresser at her home in London. He stood behind her, brushing her hair. He knelt down and placed soft kisses on her neck. She let out a soft moan and turned around, taking the brush from his hands. Sydney sat, staring into the mirror, brushing her hair. Strokes regular, like the beating of her heart.
‘Sydney? I think you’re hair is done. Get your dress on. We should be going.’
She smiled at him and dropped the hairbrush onto the dresser. He left the room as she slipped out of her bath robe and into the little red number she had chosen for the Christmas party being held at the local club where they went dancing. He walked in as she was slipping on the matching red sandals. She could feel his eyes on her as she stood up and let him admire her.
His eyes ran over the silk clinging onto her curves and her bare legs. They travelling onto her face and caught a glimpse of the mischievous glint in his eye she had come to know so well. He glanced at his watch and his lips curled into his signature smirk.
‘It took you a while to get ready. It won’t take you as long to get dressed the second time, will it love?’ he took a step towards her.
She smiled. ‘We’ll be late,’ Sydney took a step back and bumped into the dresser.
‘Who cares?’ he closed the distance between them and his lips found hers. Her arms left her sides and wrapped themselves round his neck.
The brush fell onto the floor.
* * *
She had thought he was in prison. That’s why she hadn’t expected to see him. Sometimes she wondered why he was there, if he had been seeking her that day. It hadn’t mattered to her. He was a familiar face and while she had despised everything he stood for, she believed that if they were both running, why not run together?
Their relationship had evolved over the four years they had been running together. She had hated him at first. Then they had become friends, and now they were more .She did love him, very much so. But she would never tell him, and he was the same. The risk of rejection was too great; the risk of everything was too great.
One might wonder why her eyes were so full of sorrow, when she was so much in love. Truth was, as happy as she felt being with him, her past haunted her. She saw old faces everywhere and there was a part of her, a part that had disappeared many years ago, which she regretted losing. She missed her innocence, her goodness. Even her ignorance.
* * *
Eric Weiss entered the room to find his best friend throwing clothes into a suitcase. Michael Vaughn had been trying to find Sydney Bristow almost as hard as Jack Bristow had for the past five years. Weiss worried that he might lose it one day. Vaughn didn’t really care if he did.
‘Where are you running off to?’
‘I got a call from a contact of mine. There’s been a sighting in London. My flight’s in two hours.’
‘You really think she’s there?’
‘I don’t know. But if she is, I’m going to find her. And Eric? Don’t mention this to Jack? I don’t want him to get his hopes up. Who knows what could happen to him if he was let down again.’ With that, Vaughn hurried out the door off to the airport. Weiss didn’t mention that Vaughn was in the same danger that Jack was of being let down by the thought of finding Sydney. Weiss knew that Vaughn already knew the dangers.
* * *
Sark had had a hamster once. Irina had bought her for him on his sixteenth birthday. He had found it quite odd that she would buy the boy she had been using as an assassin for the past year a hamster, but he had taken it at once. Acts of kindness from Irina were rare and he had learned to accept them when they came.
She had ordered him to name her. He had stared at her white fur and hypnotising eyes. That’s how he’d always imagined her. Like Snow White. He’d only ever seen a few photos and heard a couple of stories about her when he was extra good. He named her Sydney. Irina had not looked pleased.
He remembered the first night. The squeaky wheel had prevented him from getting any sleep. And yet, he hadn’t minded. The thought of having someone around, even if that someone wasn’t human, meant too much to him for him to get pissed. After all, he was still a boy, and all boys, even ice cold assassins, needed friends.
Little Julian had become rather attached to Sydney. He played with her at every free moment he had. The squeaky wheel became necessary for his sleep. Then he had found out the truth. It was a test. One morning, Irina asked him to bring down Sydney’s cage. When he had done so, she had asked him chop up the little hamster into pieces. He hesitated. He had forgotten how much whips hurt. Older Julian shuddered in his memory. He had cried the whole way through it. The poor innocent hamster. Poor innocent Sydney. He remembered the blood that had spilled onto his perfect white shirt. Of all the murders he had ever committed, that had been the hardest.
He had learnt the lesson Irina had been trying to teach him. Never get attached. Attachment brings you pain. Be capable of doing whatever is necessary, no matter what the cost. He used to wonder what he would have been like if it hadn’t been for that little hamster, if he hadn’t closed himself off. It didn’t matter. There was no going back now. Sometimes he still heard the wheel squeaking in his mind, still felt the blood soaking his shirt. Still felt the tears running down his cheeks and his heart pounding in his chest.
He shook those thoughts out of his mind. He had more important things to think about. Sark was throwing a Christmas Eve party for Sydney. They didn’t really know very many people so he just invited all the neighbours. It didn’t really matter. Sydney just needed cheering up, and he had the perfect Christmas gift for her.
* * *
Michael Vaughn rushed towards his taxi. He was shivering with cold. Damn him for forgetting his coat when he left in such a hurry. He had forgotten that London was much colder than LA, especially at this time of the year. It didn’t matter. Soon he would find Sydney and he wouldn’t be cold anymore.
* * *
The guests milled around the living room. Dozens of semi-familiar looking people greeted Joshua and Sophia Guevara, the young hosts of the party. They smiled as they saw how in love the newlyweds were. The women envied her as he wrapped his arms around her waist and waved a small piece of mistletoe above her head. The men envied him as she placed a soft kiss on his lips.
‘I have a present for you. Do you want it now?’ he murmured into her ear.
‘Present? What is it?’ she smiled, her expression like a child’s.
He walked over to the Christmas tree and picked up a large square-shaped package. He handed it to her and looked at her, waiting for her to rip open the wrapping paper. She opened it and looked at the canvas. She could hear gasps of admiration coming from her guests but all she could see was the beautiful picture in her hands. The depth in her eyes, brown amidst the flurry of colours.
‘I remember you once told me that you loved the Mona Lisa, but it was too dark and depressing to look at. When we were in France, I had this street painter re-paint it in pastel colours. Do you like it?’
‘I love it,’ she looked into his eyes. ‘Thank you.’
* * *
Sark looked around the room. He was bored. Sydney was in one of her sociable moods and he couldn’t bring himself to actually find anyone in the room besides her remotely interesting. Bankers, lawyers, and accountants. Who seriously gave a damn?
That was when he heard the sound of shattering glass. He looked over to Sydney and saw her standing there, her shattering champagne flute at her feet. Her eyes were wide and staring. He moved to look at what she was seeing. He caught a glimpse of a man before he was gone. He rushed to be beside his love.
‘Are you okay Sy- Sophia?
She turned towards him. Tears were running down her face and the look in her eyes was wild, almost like a hunted animal. Then again, that is what she was. ‘Did you see him? Tell me you saw him!’
He looked at her sadly, the look in his eyes almost pitiful, ‘yes love. I saw him – this time.’ His voice was in a whisper, only heard by him and Sydney. He turned to their guests, ‘I’m very sorry. We’re going to have to cut this party short. My wife is feeling unwell.’
* * *
Sark waited until they were all gone before he went out the back garden. He was standing there, just like he had expected.
‘Agent Vaughn.’ The cold British accent was back and for a moment, just one moment, he felt like that little boy with the dead hamster once again.
‘Sark.’ The older man nodded to him.
‘You shouldn’t have come you know. She can’t take it.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Vaughn turned to Sark with interest. If there was one thing they both cared about, it was the safety of the woman they both loved.
‘Why do you think we’ve been running all these years? You never found us. I doubt you would have, in most of those places. She kept seeing you. You and Jack mostly. Sometimes she would see Dixon or Tipin. She would see you and have these breakdowns. Sydney would cry and scream, I had to take her away from those places. I would behind something each time to take you there while I found somewhere safe for us to relocate to. It drove her crazy, what happened with Jack. Knowing that her whole life had been controlled by her father, she couldn’t take it.’
Vaughn nodded. ‘I should go then. Don’t worry, I’ll tell everyone that it was another dead end. I’ll try and get them off the case. Just- is it okay if I try to talk to her or a minute? God, I can’t believe I just asked your permission to talk to Sydney.’
Sark seemed to be on the verge of smiling for a moment, but it was gone so fast that Vaughn was unsure of whether he had imagined it. ‘You can try. Just don’t push her.’ He watched the older man enter his home and closed his eyes, hoping Sydney would make it through this.
End of Part One – Please R & R for part two to be posted.
Amisha
Xxx
