Title: Straight Cut (R)

Author: Rez

Timeline: Post “The Telling,” pre-Season 3

Summary: Sark sees what he wants and gets what he asks for. S/S

Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.

 

A/N: This is a draft of the penultimate chapter of an unfinished sequel to Cynara. It was written in August 2003 but the story as a whole languished and was put aside and subsequently killed for all time by the Season 3 episode titled “A Missing Link” (3.04, October 2003), which used a plot development so similar that I felt unable to continue with it. I’d like to thank Auburn for her early read of the chapter. This draft is unbeta’d. All errors are mine.

 

 

 

He sees the instant when it finally registers that they’ve come for her. She’s looking past him, into the next room—at the bed, still unmade, the fine sheets tumbled.

 

“You know that doesn’t matter,” he tells her, Sloane’s men lined up behind her, waiting for his word.

 

She looks back at him and her eyes are dark—dark; there’s darkness there he can’t measure.

 

She says, “It will matter,” shivering in the shabby woolen jumper, bare legs corded with muscle; wanting, he knows, to move. But her eyes are steady.

“Remember that,” she tells him softly. “It will matter.” There’s nothing she can do—yet.

 

They all watch while she finishes dressing. The extraction team doesn’t bother to search the room, search her. They’re careless, well below the usual standard, and Sark wonders whether Sloane’s becoming inattentive, the closer he gets to wherever he thinks he’s going. Not a hope to be counted on.

 

He gestures with a jerk of his head. They make sure she faces him while they secure her hands behind her. He’s amazed, watching the violated look in her eyes change, as he meets the dark stare once more, to something stranger, stronger. She’s understood that things are more complicated than they appear. She smiles faintly at him. He’d like a moment to memorize the sight, but they’ve moved her away, through the door, and all he sees is the back of her head as they take her up the emergency stairway to the roof. He follows, making sure they understand who’s in possession. Sloane will have warned them.

 

I don’t love you, that smile says. I don’t hate you.

 

What he’s about to ask her would be simpler if she had a reason to care. If either one were true.

 

I know you, says the smile. And you know me.

 

Too late, Sydney, he thinks, and isn’t that just about the funniest bloody thing you’ve ever heard? His forward motion carries him up and onto the helipad, across the grit and into the waiting helo, behind her. The sun’s getting low; it shines out through a rift in the clouds.

 

There’s a disorderly scrum, men pulling themselves up into the big cabin, jostling each other, stowing their gear. They’ve left her for him and she’s still standing, quiet but waiting for a chance to move. He pulls her around and into a lascivious kiss, surprising her into a struggle. The men behind him don’t even notice until someone bumps him and laughs, calling to the others.

 

Work with me, Sydney.

 

He moves a hand down her belly, caresses her crudely through the fabric of her trousers. The raucous laughter from Sloane’s men grows louder. She jerks away from his touch; he pulls her back.

 

“No, no, pretty,” he says, to more laughter from Sloane’s men, his right hand moving quietly behind her. He finds the first knife nestling haft-downward in its sheathe under the long, loose sleeve of her jumper. He frees it gently. The ceramic edge slices easily through the plastic binding her wrists.

 

The rotor begins to move above them, a brutal noise, increasing by the second. He presses the short haft of the knife into her right hand, feels her fingers curl around it. She relaxes in his arms for just a second, yielding—and he wants her, really does want her, in that instant. He knows she can feel it because she sighs against his mouth and he smiles at the sheer comedy of it. The kiss is real, for a moment. She’ll follow his lead.

 

The high collar of the jumper impedes him. He pulls it out of shape, baring her shoulder. Makes a line with his tongue, upward to the hairline, stopping just at the nape of her neck. She shivers, still apparently captive in his hold, her back to the doorless opening of the pod. The men behind him raise a cheer. He moves to shield her further from their line of sight.

 

“Help me,” he says, mouth to her ear, one hand in her hair as she twists in his embrace, giving the onlookers something more to occupy them. “Use it,” voice low under the noise of the rotor and the engine revving for throttle-up.

 

Her feigned struggle turns real; her head goes back and she meets his gaze, the small cool shape almost lost in her hand under his. There’s hard rebellion in the brown eyes, for an instant, as his fingers press against hers. She does not misunderstand him. He knows she doesn’t.

 

Come on, Sydney, he thinks, and her face is composed now; she knows as well as he does it’s all she can do for him—if she will. There’s no way he’ll let Sloane have her. He’d prefer to keep himself aboveground as well but she’s got no reason to grant him even that much.

 

Just this one more thing, Sydney. Please.

 

He pulls her head back, giving Sloane’s men one more taste; hears, over the racket, a salacious laugh at her renewed struggle. The note of the engine changes; they’re about to lift.

 

“Now,” he breathes against her skin, and gives her the choice. He drops his hands: Now, go—but she’s there with him, the silky kiss of the knife and her mouth against his all one thing.

 

And she’s kind, knows not to hesitate and not to let up on the pressure; knows the right spot, Petrov’s last lesson: between the upper ribs, not too close to the heart, so the damage might be reparable. He wants to laugh because it’s so perfect, in a way.

 

—Harder, love, so he’ll really believe it, you know Sloane’s a canny bastard—ah, Christ—

 

The western light seems to splinter against the hard shine of her eyes.

 

—But she’s kind, and the blade’s a beauty; he feels the push—wrong, his brain registers, get it out—but no pain, yet, and he overrides the primal urge to pull away, embraces it and her just a second more—won’t even close his eyes because this might go wrong…. 

 

She leaves the knife in the wound but before her hand opens and releases the haft she says something he can’t quite hear, between the noise and his dazzlement, and then they’re aloft, the rooftop spinning away below, and she’s gone.

 

He watches her stagger as the machine pivots up and away. It looks as though she’s hit her head, perhaps on the skid—she’s down and rolling and on her knees on the graveled surface of the pad. And up, unsteady, but up, jinking back toward the shelter and through the door. The stairway branches, he knows. From there she’s got choices, and more choices ramifying the closer she gets to ground level. If she’s still on her feet, she’s clear.

 

—And now the pain flares, quick fire stoked by his heartbeat and his breath, and he leans against the bulkhead and tries not to jar the blade, thinking how strange his life has become.

 

He’s tired, he thinks, as Sloane’s men take in what’s happened and begin shouting at the pilot to turn back. And now there’ll be Sloane to convince, and a reckoning, ultimately, with Jack Bristow. He settles to his knees as gently as he can.

 

The pilot circles back and hovers while the team drops onto the rooftop but she’s had a good ten minutes, all she needs. The helo heads back to its origin and the ones still on board know enough to leave him alone until Sloane’s medical staff can take care of him. His lung is collapsing and the bleeding’s all internal at this point, nothing they can give him till there are better resources to hand.

 

Sydney did her best for him. If they can get him back in time—if Sloane’s a believer—he’ll probably live.

 

*