Title: Coda (PG-13)

Author: Rez

Spoilers: 3.10, “Remnants”

Summary: Sark is a little older now: five memories of Allison.

Disclaimer: Alias and its characters are the property of JJ Abrams/Bad Robot Productions. I play with them for fun, not profit.

Feedback: Cherished and always acknowledged. lo_rez @ adelphia.net

 

A/N: Many thanks to Vanzetti and Auburn for extraordinary beta help.

 

 

They met while Irina was gone. He tried for the proper distance; she was an outsider, hired muscle—Arvin Sloane’s choice. It was no use.

 

She laughed at his name, mocked his pale composure, stole kisses when she caught him out. His world was small; she crowded the horizon. Bold, careless—what defense did he have? Touching her, he understood how little he really knew.

 

She let them do what they’d hired her for. The bigger change was inside, behind the new face. He breathed the taint of another man when he kissed her.

 

Irina returned and coldness with her.

 

 

*

 

 

He conceded what was necessary, explained what she’d done and who paid her. They told him she was dead.

 

He swallowed fury, shoved the pain down hard. His face he kept calm, his voice smooth, shrugging to show that he understood and didn’t care. He knew Jack Bristow suspected otherwise but the questions moved to other, more important things.

 

In the small hours he stared at nothing, built a box in his head, gathered her up and laid her inside and locked it down tight.

 

Every loss is another degree of freedom; every empty space means more room to move.

 

 

*

 

 

Strasbourg: streetlights and damp cobbles. He stumbled toward a silhouette. The mist made haloes, left the figure dark, but he’d had this dream before.

 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said. The satisfied purr, the glinting smile: she proved she was real with a kiss. It failed to persuade him of anything else.

 

Partners again, she said, but of course she wasn’t there for him. Or, more likely, she was.

 

They made love and Christ, it hurt. She turned her face away afterwards, answered his soft questions with lies. He couldn’t stop touching her even then.

 

Alive again.

 

 

*

 

 

What if he’d let her take the box?

 

She grabbed for it the instant it was in his hand. He could have engineered the delivery to Bristow later. Could have but didn’t.

 

But here’s the real question: How often can you whore yourself out to death and still be sane? Her rage hid terror. She goaded Tippin, courted him, all but coaxed him into that embrace. She let it happen

 

He carried her back and waited, but she’d finally cheated her masters and gone. He tried to be glad.

 

A knife in the heart. It rounded off so many things.

 

 

*

 

 

Strange, how it’s harder the second time. He tries but can’t outrun memory, still sometimes catches sight of her face half-hidden in a random shadow. The lesson’s done but he’s captive, undismissed.

 

He lets it replay because nothing is perfect, but this came close: the feel of her unguarded, open, daring him to loose his hold and fall.

 

He knows it was only the illusion of choice. She was anything but free, and it’s freedom he wants and will have. He wonders if he’ll find the taste the sweeter for its bitter edge.

 

 

***

 

December 31, 2003

 

A/N: These five 100-word pieces were inspired by Vanzetti’s beautiful Appointed Hours.