* * *
* * *Day Three
“Are you stockpiling or recouping?” Sark merely blinked at her blearily, so she attempted to clarify the question. “You seem so determined to sleep away this vacation. I was just wondering if you’re storing up for something that’s coming or making up for something you’ve missed.”
“I realized something at your apartment a few months ago,” he replied, nestling his head against her shoulder again. “You’d never kill me in my sleep.”
“Not unless your snoring becomes unbearable,” she agreed.
“And you wouldn’t let anyone else.”
“Kill you in your sleep?” Confusion began to tinge her amusement. “While you’re lying beside me? No, probably not.” She waited for him to continue, but eventually it became clear that he thought he’d answered her question. A rogue tuft of hair stood up on the side of his head and she tried to smooth it back down. “You really trust that I’d protect you?” she asked at last.
“Only here.”
His tone was matter-of-fact and Sydney was shaken by his certainty. She wasn’t sure which interpretation of the simple statement disturbed her more. Was it his assumption that she would ever defend him? Or that she’d let him be harmed in any other situation?
“So, I’m supposed to be your bodyguard this week?” she said, retreating into easy banter. “And here I thought you’d invited me along just for the sex.” Her redirection prompted a snort of muffled laughter.
“If sex was all I wanted, I could have brought anyone. I have it on good authority that I’m cute, you know.”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“No, probably not. I think it’s quite possibly the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“What did I ever do to deserve you?”
“Something rather horrible, I imagine,” he said cheerfully.
Deciding that was probably true, she tweaked his ear anyway. Then she scraped her fingernails down the back of his neck just to hear his breath catch. He responded by doing the same to the small of her back. Her hands moved across his shoulders as his slid over her hips. As he brushed across her scar, she shuddered. She folded her hand over his, pressing his palm against the ragged disfigurement.
“Tell me that’s over,” she said.
“You don’t need to worry about it anymore.” His tone was firm but she’d heard the almost imperceptible pause.
“Tell me it’s over,” she said again.
“They won’t get what they want.”
“Damn it, Sark,” she snapped, sitting up abruptly. She could feel his sudden tension, but couldn’t tell whether it was caused by her unexpected movement or by the name she used. “Just this once, can’t you give me a straight answer?”
He sat up behind her and leaned against the headboard. “This might come as a bit of a shock to you,” he said. “But there are some in the Covenant who don’t believe I’m entirely trustworthy. I suspect that there are a great many things they aren’t telling me and I don’t currently have the resources to ferret them all out. I can’t tell you what I don’t know and I hate to disillusion you, but there’s a hell of a lot that I just don’t know anymore.”
“Not even this?” Her voice had fallen to a whisper and she felt her eyes well up as he slowly shook his head.
“You’d be naďve to think that they put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak.” He attempted a wry smile. “But isn’t it good enough for you to know that the continued existence of the Covenant isn’t part of my long-term strategy? I don’t intend to let them get anything they want… no matter what it is. If I tell you that you don’t have to worry about it, can’t you just accept it?”
“Tell me…” Her voice trailed off and she blinked back her tears.
“Don’t ask me for things you know I can’t give you,” he said softly.
She knew that he wasn’t speaking just of answers and information. She knew, without a doubt, that sooner or later he was going to be responsible for things that might hurt her. But she wasn’t here because he’d ever hidden what he was or told her reassuring lies. She hadn’t come because he’d ever made her pretty promises they both knew he couldn’t keep. She could never claim that he’d misled her. She knew what he could offer her… and what he couldn’t.
* * * “We should do something today.”
Sark raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Such as?”
They were sitting on the patio, watching the morning tide roll in. Sark was trying to peel an orange, without much success. Sydney was tempted to take it away from him and do it herself but resisted.
“I don’t know. Something. What about scuba diving?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We could rent a boat. Jet skis? Bicycles?”
“You’re not serious.”
“What about horseback riding?”
“Horses?” The antipathy in his voice was unmistakable.
Sydney sighed. “We could drive up to Marigot and see the fort.”
“Or down to see the one in Philipsburg?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You can be a real bastard when you try.”
“I can be one when I’m not trying; it’s probably genetic. Why do we have to go do anything?”
She reached over and took the orange from him. “Because that’s what people on vacation do. They do things. Don’t you have any hobbies? I mean, besides pissing people off?”
“No. That one seems to occupy most of my free time. And if your next suggestion is parasailing, I’m going to pack.”
“Golf, then. I drove past a golf course on the way here from the airport.”
“The golf course,” he corrected. “You passed the golf course. They only have one. And do I strike you as being someone who’s ever had time to learn how to play golf?”
“I’m not expecting you to be a professional. We could just go and have fun.”
“I don’t golf.” He frowned at the peeled orange when she threw it back at him.
“Then the only thing left is the Butterfly Farm.” His look of horrified disgust was priceless.
* * * “You’re right. You really do suck at this.”
“Thank you. Are we finished, then?”
Sydney shook her head in amusement as she watched Sark stand with a golf club hitched over his shoulder in a decidedly un-golfer-like stance. “How many balls do we have left?”
“Six,” Sark replied as he swung. “Five,” he amended happily.
“You’re aiming for the ocean, aren’t you?”
“It’s a much more realistic target.”
“You’re doing this on purpose. If you can’t be good at something, you’re going to be deliberately awful?”
“There’s something therapeutic about purposefully doing something spectacularly badly. You should try it.”
“You just want me to help you lose the rest of the balls. I give up. You win. We should go.”
“We could at least play out the box,” Sark protested with an exasperating grin. “I’m finally beginning to have fun here. And I believe we’ve managed to madden the poor fellows queued up behind us - so the morning hasn’t been a complete loss.”
* * * It only took four more holes to lose the rest of the dozen balls they’d started out with. Over lunch at a small Creole restaurant, they agreed to give Pic Paradis a try. That might not have been such a brilliant idea, Sydney conceded as they surveyed the large number of people surrounding the foot of the small nature trail. Sark was eyeing them with a look of ill-concealed revulsion.
“You aren’t armed, are you?” she asked and had to snicker when he merely bared his teeth. “They’re only tourists. Try not to hurt any of them.”
“Can’t I thin them out just a bit?”
“It’s not that bad. Most of them are on their way off the mountain anyhow. It must be a tour group finishing up.”
The dirt path proved to be much more sparsely populated than they had feared and Sydney was able to keep a safe distance between Sark and most of the unsuspecting hikers.
“Now, wasn’t that worth the climb?” she asked as they sat on the edge of the observation platform, looking out over the bay.
“It was better than golf.”
Sydney pretended to ignore his sarcasm. It was a beautiful view. The wide harbor was flecked with bright sailboats and the island of St. Bart’s was just visible on the horizon. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sark surreptitiously flexing one of his legs. Her gaze was drawn, as usual, to the jagged scar.
“Does it hurt?” she asked. “Where I uh…”
“Put a pickax through it?” He smiled thinly and shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? It’s hardly as if you were unprovoked.”
“Remorse just isn’t something you’re familiar with, is it?”
“You do know the clinical definition of a sociopath, don’t you?”
She sighed and looked back out over the harbor. “I do. And I’m beginning to think it might be contagious.”
Sark laughed. “What do you believe qualifies you to be in my class?”
“Being in your company. That alone meets at least half the criteria.”
“You regret entirely too much to ever be a proper sociopath,” he assured her. “You regret things that were necessary, things you had no control over. You even regret things other people have done.”
“Julia wasn’t another person.”
“You were programmed and don’t even remember her. It’s ridiculous for you to feel remorse for anything she did.”
“She was me.”
“It’s not the same…”
She watched realization hit him. For an instant, he appeared more stunned than she’d ever seen him. Then a frown started between his brows and she knew he’d begun to comprehend what she’d just said.
“You were never programmed. It didn’t take.”
“No.”
“So, you do actually remember the last two years.”
“No. I… It’s complicated.”
“Explain it to me.”
Sydney cringed at the coldness in his voice and wondered why she’d ever started this conversation. “I had my memories erased to protect the Rambaldi cube.”
“You did this to yourself?” His look of undisguised astonishment returned. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. That can’t be all of it.”
“As far as I know,” she said miserably. “It is.”
He stared at her for a moment longer before erupting. “That’s absolutely moronic,” he snapped. “Didn’t you think it through? You weren’t the only one who knew where that bloody cube was. How could you possibly think your ignorance would protect it? How could you ever believe you’d be able to accept not knowing what had happened? You must have had a better reason than that to do this to yourself.”
“I don’t remember. I didn’t want to. I just…” She stopped, unable to speak as her throat constricted. Sark wore an expression she’d never seen him direct at her before - contempt.
“I never took you for a coward, Sydney.”
She glared at him angrily. “What the hell do you know? You have no idea what it was like!”
“Apparently, neither do you.”
“You bastard! This is all your fault!” The sudden accusation surprised her just as much as it seemed to confuse Sark. She shook her head at his baffled, questioning look and fled. She didn’t know how far down the trail she had run before she tumbled to a stop. She drew her legs up to her chest as she sat beside the path, struggling to regain her composure.
She didn’t know why she was so upset. He hadn’t said anything she hadn’t already thought herself. And maybe that was the problem. Everyone at the CIA who knew had been so supportive, so sympathetic. So patronizing. There had been compassion in Dixon’s eyes, understanding in her father’s. But they were both always trying to protect her. Sark never pulled his punches. That was one of the things she… appreciated about him. To hear him voice her own doubts aloud made them seem so much more credible.
Sark had always been safe - emotionally if not physically. She’d always known that he would never judge her. He’d never be disappointed by any of her actions and his opinion didn’t matter to her anyway. But somehow, it had happened. He had judged her after all. His disappointment had been as unexpected as it had been unmistakable. And it hurt. As badly as if it had been her father, as much as if it had been Dixon.
What had she done?
And why had she blamed him?
Her breath caught as an explanation leapt to mind. It probably wasn’t The Explanation - because she suspected she might never know what her real thought process had been. But it was a plausible rationalization. Sark had always felt like a uniquely intimate threat, even before her Covenant nightmare. The danger he posed, even now…
She gasped again at a touch on her leg. Sark knelt in the dirt before her, daubing at the gash in her knee with a damp cloth.
“You’re an idiot,” he said conversationally.
“You carry a handkerchief,” she replied and he smiled at her dazed non sequitur.
“At all times. One never knows when there might be blood.” He motioned for her left hand and she obediently held it out. Sark poured more bottled water onto the handkerchief and began to clean her scraped palm. “I may have been a bit hasty up there,” he said slowly, not looking up at her face. “Even if you have an absolutely pathetic excuse for your actions, I’m sure it seemed -to you- like the best choice at the time. Though I must admit I’m somewhat hazy on my alleged culpability in all this.”
She snorted quietly at his backhanded apology and wiped at her eyes. Her right hand was just as scratched as her left and she held it out for him, too.
“Do you think it’s any coincidence that I turned up just a few days before your extraction?” she asked. “I knew the plan. To get the gold, they needed you… And you were the one person I couldn’t deal with. You would have known there was no Julia.”
He stopped wiping at her palm and finally met her gaze. “You really believe I’d have been able to see through something your Covenant handlers couldn’t?”
“If anyone could, it would have been you,” she said with resigned certainty.
“I’m flattered. But you also believe I would have betrayed you?”
“Probably.”
“Maybe.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Maybe not. It might have been fun.”
“You have the screwiest idea of fun.”
“You wouldn’t have wasted the past six months. You’d still be on the inside. You could have protected the cube; I could have helped you. We could have worked together so much more efficiently. That’s the real reason, isn’t it?” he asked as she looked away. “You weren’t afraid that I’d expose you. You were afraid that I wouldn’t.”
She couldn’t deny it. That must have been at least part of her reason for getting out when she did, the way she did. She knew instinctively that she must have feared looking up into those clear blue eyes and knowing that he understood her. How easy it could have been to join him then - the way he’d always seemed so certain she one day would. She even would have had Kendall’s approval.
“You would have ditched the two-bit Euro-trash thief for me, of course,” he said, following her train of thought as if he could read her mind. “Both sides would have commended the move. The Covenant would think you were showing ambition and the CIA would have enjoyed receiving a higher level of intel than Walker could provide.” He sat back on his heels. “And you and I would have ended up exactly where we are right now.”
“In the middle of a rainforest with me crying and bleeding and you being…?”
“Confused and exasperated? Well, maybe not exactly where we are right now.”
No, she thought. Not exactly. And she wasn’t certain anymore that the alternative might not have been an improvement.
“Come on, Sydney.” Sark stood and offered her a hand. “It’s getting dark. I’m not carrying you and I don’t feel like doing jungle recon tonight. We can continue this discussion elsewhere.”
* * * Conversation was minimal on the hike down the mountain and during the drive back to the villa. Sydney insisted on dressing her own wounds using the small first aid kit that Sark provided. She didn’t really want to know why he’d brought it. When she emerged from the bathroom, she found him sitting on the patio in the dark. He had poured them both glasses of wine and she picked hers up before sitting down in the chair beside him.
“If your intentions were to protect the cube, avoid me, and forget everything you’d been forced to do over the past two years,” he said. “One out of three is not a resounding success rate. I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that the only child of the two best strategists I’ve ever met could come up with such an ultimately futile plan.”
“I’d love to argue,” she said. “But honestly, I’m just as stumped as you are. I’ve been racking my brain ever since I found out that I’d done this to myself… and all I can come up with is that it must have been a hell of a couple of years.”
“At least your account explains why no one I’ve talked to ever seemed to have a credible excuse for your memory lapse. I’d thought they were keeping it from me just to be tedious.”
“You’ve been trying to find out what happened to me?” She was oddly pleased at the thought.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not particularly overjoyed with my current situation. Most anything that annoys my employers pleases me. You annoy them a great deal. I thought if I could discover what you’d done to vex them enough to take such drastic measures, I’d have something interesting to bargain with. And all you did was steal their little Rambaldi box.” He paused to take a drink of his wine. “I’m really starting to dislike that man.”
“I always thought that you were one of the true believers.”
“I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by the Rambaldi-obsessed,” he snorted. “It’s brought none of them anything but trouble and madness. Why didn’t you just pour out the contents of the cube there in the desert and stomp on it a bit?” She giggled, both at the mental image and at Sark’s wistful tone. And possibly because of the wine. She waved her glass vaguely.
“Not a clue.”
“Would have saved us all a few rounds of shooting at one another.”
“Yeah.”
They sat in silence a while longer, sipping wine and staring out at the ocean. Finally, Sark rose and offered Sydney his hand once again.
* * * A sharp cry roused her. It hadn’t been loud, she realized once her heart stopped pounding. Only near. Sark lay beside her, every muscle taut, and she was surprised to discover that he was still asleep. His fists were clenched tightly in the sheets and his breathing was irregular. She brushed her fingers over his cheek, feeling the knotted muscle of his jaw. His eyes snapped open and she gasped at the sudden flurry of motion. In an instant he was above her, hands at her throat, thumbs digging for her windpipe.
“It’s me!” she rasped, clawing at him. “It’s Syd! Martin, stop!”
Sark froze. “Syd?” His hands moved to her shoulders and he pulled her upright. “Sydney? Sydney!” She coughed harshly and leaned against him.
“I’m okay,” she assured him when she could speak again. There would be bruises in the morning, but they worried her less than the stark fear she’d seen in his eyes as he’d stared down at her blindly. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” he said, stroking her hair. “It was… just a dream. It was nothing.”
“Right.” She could feel the way his hands still shook, the way his pulse still raced. “Try again. What does a sociopath have nightmares about?” She could just discern his thin smile in the darkness.
“You don’t really want to know.”
“Ordinarily, I’d probably agree. It’s just that the thing you woke up screaming… It was ‘Sydney, no!’”
“It was nothing.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t remember.” Sydney had a feeling that neither of them was convinced. His arms remained tightly locked around her as they lay back down. “I don’t dream,” he murmured, as if reassuring himself. “I never dream.”
“Everybody dreams.”
“I don’t. I never sleep deeply enough. Especially not if someone else is with me.”
“Who else would be with you?” she asked. Then immediately wished she hadn’t. “Sorry. Forget I asked. It’s none of my business. You can do what you want. After all, I slept with Will.” She mentally kicked herself even as the words slipped out. “I’m sorry. That was - You didn’t want to know that.”
“Will?” he repeated blankly.
“Will. Tippin. He’s the…”
“I know who Will is.” He had gone very still beside her. “What is it about that man?” he muttered. “And why are you telling me this?”
“I kissed Vaughn, too,” she couldn’t help adding now that she’d started.
Sark closed his eyes. “Has anyone ever pointed out to you,” he asked wearily. “That your bizarre desire to go about confessing things is rather unhealthy given what you do for a living?” He opened his eyes again and looked down at her. “I wasn’t bothered when I thought you’d killed my father. Why would you suppose it might matter to me that you slept with Tippin?”
“I don’t. It doesn’t. I just…” She vehemently regretted ever beginning this conversation. If she kept opening her mouth, she was going to end up confessing things that were even worse. Like how when she’d been running her hands through Will’s short hair, it had been the blond assassin and not the one-time reporter that she’d been thinking of. His ego was bad enough as it was. “What would have happened if you’d had that dream while anyone else was with you?”
“Nothing. It wouldn’t have happened. When I told you that you’re the only person I trust not to kill me in my sleep, I meant it. I don’t sleep if there’s anyone else in my bed. Wouldn’t matter anyway,” he added almost absently. “I doubt anyone I know would be surprised I dream about you killing me.”
He had dreamed about her killing him? She surmised from his careless wording that this wasn’t the first time either. “Is that what it was?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” he replied, abruptly stiffening again. Sydney wondered if he were unconsciously beginning to let down his guard around her or if she were just learning to read him better. It was also possible that she wouldn’t have felt his tension if she hadn’t been pressed so tightly against him. “I don’t remember… Maybe.”
“I‘m sorry,” she whispered.
“Why are you always trying to apologize for things that aren’t your fault? It was my dream and it doesn’t mean anything. Actually, I probably ought to be apologizing to you.”
She listened to his heartbeat gradually slow to normal. Her throat ached where his thumbs had pressed. “You know, Marty, saying that you probably ought to apologize for something isn’t the same as actually doing it.”
“No?”
“No.”
He was silent for so long that she began to believe he wasn’t going to speak again at all. Finally, however, he did.
“Generally, if I injure someone, I intend to do so and it seems rather meaningless -on both sides- for me to apologize for it. I’m not accustomed to unintentionally hurting people.” His fingers moved softly over her hair. “I am sorry, Sydney.”
“That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
“No, but…”
“It’s okay,” she sighed. “Go back to sleep, Marty.”
He had gone still once again and it took her a moment to figure out why. It wasn’t just that he was unaccustomed to apologizing for things. He was even more unaccustomed to being forgiven.
“I just tried to strangle you in your sleep,” he said.
“I was awake. You just tried to strangle me in your sleep.”
“And you’re all right with that?”
“Not exactly, but you didn’t mean to do it and you did apologize. I told you before - I’m just as capable of being pragmatic as you are.”
“You know, you probably need therapy as much as I do.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “And the sad thing is, I’m already seeing a shrink.”
“I’m so glad those aren’t my tax dollars at work.” Sark shifted slightly, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head. “I assume I haven’t been a topic of discussion in your sessions?”
“Like I need to give them any more reasons have me committed?”
“I suppose not,” he said. “Though if another confessional mood strikes and you get the urge to tell the Boy Scout about sleeping with me, you ought to take a video camera along. I think I’d rather like to see how that one turns out.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Yes,” he decided after a brief pause. “It is.”
* * *
* * *