Title: Reprise (NC-17 Lite)

Author: Rez

Summary: What’s love got to do with it? Sark/Allison  

Spoilers: 3.03 “Reunion” (Post-ep speculation)

 

Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.

 

Feedback is gratefully received and always acknowledged: lo_rez @ adelphia.net

 

A/N: Thanks to Auburn and Vanzetti for counsel and beta magic; all remaining errors and infelicities are my own. Eretria was my Guru of Tea here and forever. This is for the Waterdancer: my first try at a tribute to Allison, because you taught me to love her.

 

 

 

She stares at the image and thinks of pale-gold Columbian flake: tin-can taste at the back of the throat and gigawatt jolt to the head. The man on the screen might be bored or he might be tired; he’s sitting with his arms crossed where they rest on the table. His head is bent in thought or defeat or fatigue.

 

Best kick money can buy, yeah; try it once, want it forever. The picture’s de-rezzed and colorless but her memory’s very sharp. She stares at the image and what she thinks is that the man is angry. And that he’s waiting for something.

 

Sloane gestures with the remote, watching her. The image comes to life.

 

The man lifts his head as his captor approaches. Warm, clear light from some offscreen source catches cheek and brow, throwing shadows under the edges of bone. She thinks of opium heavy as molasses, pure Memphis black melting in a cup of tawny Assam. That’s a slower, sweeter hook, a seduction.

 

A muffled voice out of the speakers from someone beyond the camera’s gaze, away from the pickups. Something about your favorite.

 

“Have we met?” says the man on the screen. The audio’s clear there; the soft mockery in the smooth voice comes through beautifully. 

 

The picture changes, cam 2 now. San’ko delivers his speech. He’s charming in an overfed sort of way, a bear of a man, and actually not terrible in bed. The thought’s a smokescreen, self-defense. She’s watching the other one, insolence under the downswept glance as he answers the big Russian. She thinks of heroin, cold steel into the vein and a rush like angel’s wings when the strap comes off. The needle doesn’t care that you love it. You don’t have anything it wants.

 

Up on the wall, San’ko’s explaining things.

 

“And what,” asks the other man, “would that price be?” The weariness of it tightens her stomach. She knows who he’d been expecting. The mockery’s self-directed; he’d allowed himself to hope. She listens while San’ko does his little magic trick. Words make a millionaire, voilà.

 

The footage flickers to an end; the screen gives her back her own face, dimly, its heavy-eyed composure undisturbed. She taps a finger on the conference table, waiting for comment.

 

Arvin Sloane leans sideways in his chair, a well-dressed gnome in shades of gray, looking weirdly at home in this designer freak-out of an office. Industrial chic suits him; the overall effect removes scale from the environment, makes him seem large enough for his ambitions. He looks back at her with lizard calm.

 

“I’ve just received confirmation,” he says. “The Covenant has complied with our stipulation: he’s alive and in place for your meet.”

 

Stipulation, right. They’d paid a fortune—a second one—in proscribed biologicals for Sark’s life. She’d done the boost herself.

 

“Derevko,” she says, jumping ahead, aware that she’s wound too tight. Things are moving now, but not fast enough to suit her. Sloane gives her that indulgent smile.

 

“You’re still worried about that?” he says. “That’s good. You do well in Mexico and we’ll get to Irina, I promise.” Patronizing sonofabitch. “Now tell me about M. Oransky.”

 

She shrugs. “We’re on schedule. He doesn’t know I’m bringing in a new partner.”

 

Sloane looks at her with bright simian eyes. They’ve already done this dance—covered every contingency. Two years of planning and not a single misstep.

 

“I understand how important this is to you, Allison,” he says. “I want you to know that it’s very important to me, as well. I’m sure you’ll… persuade him to see things our way.” He nods toward the dark screen. She raises her brows. The threat’s par for the course but that mild tone is always trouble. Maybe he’s as anxious as she is.

 

“Not like that,” she says bluntly, answering the innuendo. Sloane’s such a pathetic creep sometimes. “But he’s not stupid. He’ll play.” Confident, reassuring, whatever.

 

Sloane’s answering smile is intended as paternal but he has a baby’s mouth, she’s always thought. She mentally adds a frilly bonnet to his silk-and-sharkskin ensemble but doesn’t smile back.

 

“Well,” he says. “He’s all yours, mm? Take care of him.” She gets to her feet. She’s halfway to the door when she hears:

 

“Allison.”

 

She turns back to meet the man’s hard, bright stare. “One way or another,” he adds, and that does provoke a smile because she gets, now, what’s biting him. Sloane’s a gangster under the bespoke tailoring but she takes liberties because she knows by this time that she can.

 

“Don’t worry,” she lies. “You’re still the man.”

 

*

 

San’ko’s boys dumped their half of the deal on the beach in Mérida. Sloane’s team snagged him and set him down again at a small-time albergue in Izamal. Sloane has a fondness for the place and it’s convenient enough. She pauses in the shadow of the old convent near the center of town, where a group of kids is playing baseball under the walls. They hold up the batting order to watch her pass but it doesn’t matter; she won’t be back. 

 

She didn’t sleep much last night, finally stood under a cold shower just to give all that energy somewhere to go. It’s an old junkie’s trick and it worked because this is only chemistry, she tells herself, like smack, like nicotine, like the goddamned provacillium, and she’s kicked them all. It’s just another fucking monkey on her back.

 

And didn’t Irina know it, all those years ago.

 

You fall for your partner, that’s all, every fucking time; it’s practically a rule. She’d figured it out early, gone to Irina and demanded to know what to do about it. Got that smile.

 

“You can have whatever you want, Allison,” she’d said. “Do whatever you want.” Smiling like the serpent she was. Whatever you want, as long as you can pay for it. We’ll deal with any problems, you know we will.

 

Don’t let it get in the way, Allison.

 

She never lets anything get in the way. She’d seen the Markovic assignment for the first-class ticket it was and when Sark protested, Irina had silenced him. “Her choice,” she’d told him, smiling, and he’d shut up. And wasn’t it true that winning the gig was only half the story? The other half was proving it one more time: she didn’t need anything. Not him and not even, in the end, herself.

 

Down a backstreet behind the cathedral, sudden cool of plaster and tile in the shadows thrown by the sinking sun. She goes through the narrow gate set in a high mud wall, finds herself in a garden courtyard strung with lights. The brick under her feet is worn smooth, with small, unexpected dips and rises.

 

She climbs the outside stair to a third-floor entry overhung with white solanum.

 

She’s not afraid. She knocks twice. From the square below, the sound of pigeons’ wings like a small thunderclap and then the quiet settling back again. He opens the door.

 

*

 

The blue stare flickers once and goes blank.

 

Time was, she’d have tackled him where he stands and kissed him senseless, but things were different between them after the change. The body makes its own choices; she learned that. He’s still for a moment and she thinks he might actually just shut the door again, but then he steps aside, hands low and relaxed, and lets her in.

 

He’s like an icy dream in the hot, late light, slender and pale, white-shirted, shorn so the curving hairline shows wheat-gold, almost white at the temples. The bones in his face are stark and his skin translucent; only the bow of his mouth is the same, a distraction. She adds color and warmth, imagines his face in gold like a king’s mask, lapis lazuli eyes shining in the refulgence of that incredible pile of bullion. Take one step, she thinks. Just the first small step.

 

She holds out her offering, a bottle of tobala mescal and two glasses in a string bag. He gestures at the table with his head, wanting, she knows, to keep his hands free. The heels of her sandals are loud on the tile floor.

 

The room’s small, plain, clean. The extraction team had probably shoved him through the door with the promise that he’d be shot if he tried to leave. Someone else has a job for you was the only message Sloane had permitted. She knows whose face he’d hoped to see, still hoped for.

 

She makes sure he sees her break the seal on the flask. She pours a shot and drinks it down and waits, holding the empty glass.

 

Behind her, he says, “Have another.” His voice is the same.

 

She has two, quickly, then sets down the glass. That’s enough for courtesy. She’ll never be what she was in close combat but he doesn’t know that. The mescal burns sweetly in her belly, a comfort.

 

“Don’t tell me,” he says, “that you waited for me.” She stretches out her arms to each side of her and touches the chipped surface of the heavy table with her fingertips.

 

“No,” she says to the vacant wall beyond, hearing his approach, and oh, God, his hands on her, the memory terrifying in its power for just an instant. But that was before, not this body, and the mescal lets her relax, endure his touch along her ribs and around the waistband of her skirt and down her legs. A dozen stupid things rise to her lips.

 

“Come on,” she says instead. “Sark. It’s me.” She’d never be fool enough to bring a weapon to a meet like this. There’s a five-man team covering the building and he undoubtedly knows that. He ignores her, finishes with a slight shove that almost feels involuntary.

 

“Do I take, then, that Irina still has a use for me?” She knows to a fine precision the shade of blue she’d see in his eyes if she were facing him. She’s just won a bet with herself, that she’d hear him say that name before he calls her by her own.

 

“No,” she says again, and takes a breath because this is the start, and from here on in she really can’t screw up. She turns, finally, and she’d be okay even without the mescal because her face, this face she’s got—it never gives anything away.

 

“Irina’s nowhere,” she tells him. “Dead” —wishful thinking— “or under so deep not even Sloane can find her.” She watches him absorb that lie—she’s sure it’s a lie. “Sloane bought you from the Covenant,” she adds, to give him something to say.

 

“I see. I was expensive, I hope.” Absently.

 

“A king’s ransom,” she says, and waits. There’s the tiny hint of a corrosive smile.

 

The plan was hers: the kill, the swap, the schedule, the whole fucking setup—the NSC doublecross, sweet cherry on top. Did you kiss the Sonora dust that morning, she wonders, touching the earth after all that time? —The way I’d kiss your beautiful skin again, so pale, kiss away the memory of that fucking cage…

 

“I like the new look,” she adds. And, politely, “I hope the guards were attractive?” —And he does laugh, then.

 

“Christ, it really is you, isn’t it?”

 

He’s seeing her now, thinking up close and more in the moment. His face is still but she can feel the fizz of too much energy locked in that tight, sleek body. And he is close, only a few feet away, and the bed is just behind him, and it’s really fucking hard to look at him and not remember—but this isn’t about how things used to be.

 

He comes nearer yet, reaches to touch the lock of hair falling over her shoulder, traces its curl with a fingertip, and Damn you, she thinks. Back up.

 

“A miraculous event altogether,” he says, “That fire,” and she breathes again. Sydney, he means.

 

“Tippin’s around too,” she tells him. Another laugh; he’s furious. But he’s thawing before her eyes, turning into himself again.

 

“Really. We return to the status quo ante. It makes one wonder whether two years’ captivity was quite necessary.”

 

—Jesus. And right out of the blue, she can’t breathe. God.

 

She should have it cold but all those times going over it in her head he wasn’t standing right in front of her and how can she tell him? No, it wasn’t and I will find that fucking whore Derevko and I will kill her and if she thought it would do the trick she’d let him see the fucking tears—

 

“Do you know,” he’s saying, “I mostly found myself remembering the real you?”

 

That helps, yes, thank you.

 

So they’re back to the hurt and angry boy he’d been, furious at her for the choices she’d made and shamed that he’d failed her at the last. She’d tasted his despair the day he finally had to tell her she was stuck —one guilty kiss, the first time he’d touched her since the change.

 

He’s giving her that deflection-shield of a stare, chin up, eyes half closed, as though he could make her disappear if he only thought about it hard enough. Of course they’d have to start here. It’s where she always starts, every fucking time.

 

“That’s the difference,” she finally says, “between me and you. If cheap wine’s all there is, you’d rather drink water.”

 

“Whereas you prefer to waste your time,” he replies, “on whatever low-rent distraction presents itself, just for the bragging rights.”

 

“So?” she says. “He had blue eyes and you didn’t want me; no harm, no foul.” She looks down at herself with a familiar feeling of detachment. “You got out,” she adds. “I can’t.” Cheap shot. And stupid.

 

“But think of the advantages—with Tippin around.”

 

“Shut up, Sark.” She finds she’s studying the palms of her hands. Jesus, you’d think she was a fucking amateur. She looks up and slides sideways just in time to avoid his reach.

 

She leans a hip on the table, crosses her arms, looks at him squarely. She doesn’t like the expression in his eyes but she’s got his attention now and another five minutes, tops, for the rest of it because Sloane’s little insurance policy for this job includes a countdown. She’s very senior by now but that just means he trusts her less.

 

“Listen,” she says. “We’ll get the bullion back eventually. Sloane’s working the Russians, through an intermediary. The gold is yours when he’s finished with them but he could use your help in the meantime.” Yeah, right. But it’s true as far as it goes and he’ll know how to figure that.

 

“Really.” Derision. He’s really fucking annoying sometimes.

 

“The faster we move, the sooner it’ll happen.”

 

“So simple.” He doesn’t buy it and shit, he’s too close again.

 

“One op. Try it and then decide.”

 

“Oh,” he says flatly, “I will,” closing the space so she’s between him and the table, his hands on her hips, and she had it under control but now she’s drenched, suddenly, wants him so badly she’s sick with it; it’s all she can do to be still, not shove him back. It would be simple to hurt him and she’d like to because it’s a gift, with him, making things difficult.

 

“Jesus, Sark, I know it’s been a while but could you focus, here? I’ve got five hungry mercs to feed and I need—“

 

“Me first,” he says, and shoves a knee between her legs, moves in until she feels him hard and straining against her, wound tighter than piano wire and very, very angry. Her full skirt’s no impediment; he pushes her legs wider and he smells so good, she remembers his scent—

 

“This won’t take long,” he tells her. There’s an edge of self-disgust along with the contempt for her but he’s an idiot if he thinks this is anything but wonderful. Any time except now. She braces herself against the edge of the wooden surface, but he pulls her hips forward and lifts her up onto the lip of the table and moves closer, and the motion of his hips driving his cock against her, even with all that cloth between them, is really fucking magic. She finds herself yielding, replies with a hand at his waist and a small sound of protest before she can stop herself.

 

“Poor Allie,” he mocks, watching her, but he’s not exactly steady himself. He leans forward and his voice is low and breathy in her ear and he’s rough, deliberately; he presses her back till she has to lean on her hands, pulls her hips closer once more and this time he doesn’t stop. He settles into a brutal, urgent rhythm and Jesus, he’s not even bothering about their clothes and it’s really fucking difficult not to wrap her legs around him and just rock. His hands are cruel but she could change that and this is the hard part, Allison. Do the goddamned job.

 

“Still sharing it out on Sloane’s order?” he’s saying, finding the spot behind her jaw—God—beautiful mouth, beautiful voice, please, please—

 

“And he still doesn’t trust you?” A hard kiss just there, with teeth. She clamps down on another involuntary sound.

 

“Listen—“ she says. He laughs and shuts her up. She can’t breathe. She tastes blood, but it might be his.

 

One more try and she’s going to take him down, yes, she will. He’s going to take the goddamned deal or she’s going to kill him herself. Or he’ll have to kill her. She wrenches her mouth free, talks to him fiercely as he shoves her skirt up around her waist, rids her of the pretty red thong she’s wearing and he laughs, he fucking laughs when the stroke of his hand between her legs leaves him with wet fingers.

 

“Bastard—“

 

—Hot breath against her neck, small, hard bites that feel so fucking good—

 

“—Sark—“ But he’s undone the belt and the fine linen trousers and now he’s—oh, God, Christ—

 

“Please, just wait, just—He trusted me to get you out—“

 

She hears her own desperation, her body rigid and still against the hard rhythm he’s setting because he’s in her now and they’re on the clock, that zero mark’s a killer and you know how this works, Sark, come on, fucking listen, you fucking idiot—and she finds she’s hammering his shoulder with her fist in a rage of frustration as he pounds himself into her—

 

“—He doesn’t trust me to bring you in. Sark—”

 

Jesus—

 

He’s over the edge and breathing in gasps and she’s glad it’s her because she wants him so much she could fucking die but nobody should see him like this, nobody. And he’s got about ninety seconds to take the offer.

 

“I run operations for Sloane,” she says tightly, because she knows he is listening, even now, panting against her, his face buried in her hair and his heartbeat clear as a drum against her breast. And God knows she’s a pro at riding it out, the craving.

 

“I’m his agent in place with the Covenant,” she says. “You can name your price and no, Sloane doesn’t tell me who to fuck and no, I didn’t even think I’d get lucky today; the new me never exactly turned you on. Now let me go so I can call off the fucking dogs.”

 

He lets her go.

 

*

 

Her hands don’t shake—they never do—when she retrieves the phone from the forgotten string bag on the table behind her. She hits a key and hands it to Sark and ignores the violence hanging in the air.

 

“Talk fast,” she says. Her voice is normal, too. He looks back at her a moment, hard-eyed, and makes her wait while he fetches a towel from the washstand, cleans up, settles his clothing. His breathing’s still wrong. He avoids her hand when he takes the phone from her. She slides off the table, watches him stalk over and stand deliberately in front of the window, the absolute idiot.

 

“The Petrus was a nice touch,” she hears him say into the phone. He sounds like a fucking theater critic but that won’t bother Sloane. She sponges off as best she can and busies herself with the mescal while he and Sloane make noises at each other. Maybe it’ll all go boom anyway; he’s angry enough. Meanwhile, they might as well have a drink. She’s feeling a little angry herself.

 

“I see,” she hears him say in that freezing drawl.

 

She’d made a deal with herself two years ago, Allison-inside with the new, older, smarter Allison, the typical user’s song and dance: Get him out and I’ll never—

 

Get him out and I swear—

 

Just get him out of that fucking cage and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing I won’t do for you.

 

And new-Allison, still new, because she knows now she’ll never regain the part of her that lived in the body she was born with, had said:

 

Really? Let Derevko walk, if that’s what it takes?

 

Yes. Maybe.

 

Let him fuck Sydney Bristow? You know he wanted to.

 

Shut the fuck up.

 

Well?

 

Just get him the fuck out.

 

—And it occurs to her, watching him pace while he volleys with Sloane, that he’s caught up with her now; he’s as much a stranger to himself as she is, still, catching a glimpse of her alien reflection in the window-glass.

 

But she’s not sure who’s thinking that thought. Not that it matters.

 

*

 

Good job, Allison, knew you could do it. Sark’s on the payroll, the op’s on schedule and she still knows how to deliver a mission spec. She’s proving it to him with her hands and her mouth and a certain way of twisting her hips against him that always made him buck like a wild pony. Do it right this time and still make Mexico City with time to spare.

 

“Christ. Allison.” He’s still boiling—talking to Sloane will do that to a person—but he’s got one hand around a rope of her hair and he’s pulling her head back so he can taste her skin. The other’s against her ass, holding her hard against the beautiful erection he’s sporting under that tailored linen and if it’s only that he’s starved and not that it’s her, particularly, she’ll care later. The body’s not a problem right now.

 

He probably hasn’t slept since he got out; he was always like that when something needed doing. She stands on tiptoe, does that little curvet that feels just right and God, he’s so ready, but there’s still a few things to get clear. And they’re still dressed, dammit. Mostly, anyway.

 

“Boris Oransky,” she says. He gasps a little against her neck. The pressure of his hand lightens.

 

“Allison. You’re joking, I trust.”

 

His smooth, beautiful, breathless voice in her ear, intimate, with reluctant laughter somewhere underneath. It’s been so long since she felt this, the good thing, like one hand holding another. This is the thing that will kill her, if she’s not careful. She can’t help the sputter of a laugh that surfaces in reply.

 

“Sorry—” she says, but it’s cut off by his kiss and she can feel him thinking and then forgetting to think when she pulls the tails of his shirt out of his trousers. The fine cotton still smells of starch. He gathers himself, breathing hard, lets his hands drift down to her waist.

 

She knows it’s not that he trusts her. It’s only that there’s comfort here for both of them; this is how it used to be. Even the anger’s familiar. She always pissed him off, one way or another.

 

“Has anyone considered the possibility”—gentle pull forward, gentle touch of his mouth to hers—

 

“—that the CIA” —again—

 

“—might actually see through this rather— clumsy—”

 

 —With teeth and tongue and a hand against the back of her neck and over too soon—

 

“—replay of the SD-6/Alliance scenario?” Hands at the small of her back, one slide of his hips, telling her to move, and it’s so cruel of him to stop.

 

“Forget the CIA—” She touches him at last, reaching under his shirt, feels him under her hands, responsive, alive.

 

“That might be difficult,” he’s saying. “On the other hand—”

 

He’s got the buttons on her shirt undone. He brushes it off her shoulders and everything stops.

 

He’s seen what a bullet or three can do at close range, of course, but never, perhaps, on a body that actually survived. She presses her right hand into his ribcage because it wants to rise, to rest protectively over her left breast, where the worst of the scarring pulls the skin out of shape. She holds herself still and listens to the breath go out of him. She waits for some jibe about carelessness. He doesn’t speak.

 

He touches the scars one by one. Her hands fall away from him as turns her around, his grip quite impersonal, and slips the straps of her very appealing bra delicately off her shoulders; it might be winter-weight tweed for all the interest he’s taking. He undoes the clasp, slides the thing down her arms. She lets it fall to the floor as he sweeps her hair to one side. She feels his fingertips brush the places where the slugs shattered bone and tore through.

 

He’ll know he can take me in a fight now for sure, she thinks, but that’s not what has her stomach in knots.

 

Yes or no? she thinks. This where we find out. He turns her around again and she misses the curls, suddenly. She wishes he looked more like he used to. No, she doesn’t.

 

“Lucky Allison.” His eyes are flat, no expression.

 

“Oh, yeah,” she hears herself say and Jesus, it’s hard to breathe. “He could have let me burn, Sloane. She would have.”

 

He’s still but she finds herself shuddering slightly: reaction. She’s never actually said that out loud before. Then:

 

“I told them all about you, you know,” he says, and she understands that he’s not changing the subject at all. But he’s finally touching her again, both hands at her waist as he moves closer.

 

“Remind me to be scared,” she says. Clever hands undoing things. The beautiful eyes meditative, now, studying her. A kiss, very gentle. He’s an intuitive man in some ways. Her breasts brush his bare skin.

 

“Irina Derevko’s mine,” she says, reaching for sanity. Her voice cracks but only on the last word. She swallows because she’s got to get the rest of it out and then she can forget everything, get lost in him just for a while.

 

“Is she?” Quietly. Her skirt drops to a muddle of silk around her ankles. Through the open window comes the bubbling call of pigeons and the smell of meat frying. It’s getting dark.

 

She leans a little, turns her head against his chest, thinks about breathing long and slow. “I’ve got resources,” she tells him.

 

—Two men between her and control of the Covenant, and they’re easy. “If you can get next to Sloane I’ll back you,” she adds. “Take these off—” A tug at his trouser leg. The clasp of his belt is angling painfully into her belly. He slides out of his remaining clothes and stands there watching her. He’s the finest thing she’s seen—ever.

 

“A straight exchange, then, Allie? Quid pro quo?” So quietly. “Or do you have other hopes of me?” She stares at him. He knows what she’s offering. Sloane wants to play him back to the Russians. Sloane likes risk but he’s really fucking gambling on this one.

 

She puts both hands against his hips and steps backward, bringing him with her, and the expression in his eyes is as remote as ever. She knew he wouldn’t give her an answer. He’ll let her make assumptions till she finds herself caught in a tangle of them, with him on the outside, smiling with blue-eyed regret as he fades out of sight. But two years have passed and everything she thought she knew pretty much went with them. Wherever her assumptions used to live, that place is empty now. Her foot catches on the crudely woven throw-rug. She lets herself fall because the bed’s just behind her. 

 

He comes down beside her. He doesn’t really care whether she answers the question; he won’t believe her, but she tells him anyway.

 

“No,” she says. “Just… partners. Like before.”

 

She remembers the rage and pain in his kiss and it’s still here but it’s new, raw and fresh and sweet. She murmurs his name, reaching, but he pulls back for a moment, watching her face, looking for something that probably never was there in the first place, even when she was really herself, and she smiles for him.

 

Outside, a single chime begins the call for evening mass, and there’s maybe an instant between the silence that comes first and the clamor of bells that follows when he might have spoken, but it passes quickly.

 

 

 

[End]

 

November 1, 2003