* * *
* * *Day Four
Sark wasn’t there when she woke again at dawn. Sydney put on one of his shirts and went to make herself a pot of coffee. She was sitting on the sofa, watching the sunrise through the patio doors when he came back.
“Running,” he said to her unspoken question. He dropped a pair of sandy trainers beside the doors.
“You aren’t going to put those away?”
“I’m living dangerously.” He eyed her coffee mug with disapproval as he sat down next to her.
“You didn’t ever go back to sleep last night, did you?”
“You’ve been complaining all week that I slept too much.”
“I’ve been complaining for two days. And since when have my complaints ever affected anything you do?”
He didn’t answer but reached to brush the hair away from her face instead. He tucked a fallen strand behind her ear, then his hand moved lower. His fingers curved around the back of her neck and he circled the bruises on her throat with his thumb. After a moment, he rose and gave her a crooked smile before disappearing into the bedroom. Sydney listened to the water run in the shower for a few minutes and then moved outside.
* * * “We are not doing anything today.” His tone brooked no argument but she wasn’t inclined to disagree with him anyway. Between all her cuts, scrapes, and bruises, she didn’t really feel up to making any public appearances. She watched him struggle to peel an orange and once again tried to resist the urge to do it for him.
“Why don’t you find something less complicated to eat for breakfast?” she asked, wrapping her fingers around the arms of her chair to keep them occupied.
“Same reason I don’t find a less complicated woman to spend my holiday with.”
“You like doing things the hard way?”
“I like oranges.”
She blinked at him, but he was still frowning intently at the fruit. He couldn’t have been oblivious to her stare, but he offered no further commentary. She watched him peel thumbnail-sized flakes for a little while longer before she went back into the villa to change clothes.
In the bathroom, Sydney had to shake her head. It was just as orderly as it had been all week and it still struck her as oddly amusing. Her makeup bag sat on the cabinet, neatly lined up beside Sark’s shaving kit. Every personal item that either of them had was always tucked carefully back into their respective cases immediately after use. It was a practice both had become accustomed to during their unconventional careers. If a base of operations had to be quickly abandoned, it was easier to manage if everything was already packed. Even here, the habit was hard to break. The sole exception to this was the pair of toothbrushes lying side by side next to the sink. They were identical.
It had been unintentional, at least on her part. Or perhaps it had been her subconscious at work. She didn’t know. It was almost as unsettling as it was comical. She’d bought her new toothbrush just before the trip. She’d liked the color and chosen the style at random. She hadn’t remembered until she’d seen his that she had owned one just like it before. Sark’s toothbrush appeared to be just as new - same color, same style. Both looked exactly like the toothbrush Sydney’d had in Romania nearly three years ago. She chuckled softly, as she had every time she’d come into the bathroom this week, and picked up one of them. She’d long since given up trying to keep track of which was hers.
Sark had finished his breakfast by the time she returned and was gazing vacantly out at the ocean. He started when she dropped the bottle of sunscreen into his lap.
“You used to have such good reflexes.”
“You try spending two years in solitary confinement and then come harass me about reflexes. I assume you want me to do something with this?” he wrinkled his nose at the bottle.
“You’re the one who decreed we aren’t going anywhere today. The least you can do is make yourself useful here.”
“The least you could do is wear a swimsuit that makes it worth the effort.”
“I thought you weren’t a pig,” she said as he began to rub the sunscreen across her shoulders.
“I’m just trying to be appreciative. You don’t like being admired?”
She couldn’t think of a good retort. Especially when his hands were doing distracting things to the exposed skin on her back. She gave up and let him finish. After all, he was only doing what she’d asked him to do. He looked at her warily when she sat up and took the sunscreen from him.
“You are planning to sit out here with me, aren’t you?” she asked. When he failed to answer immediately, she presumed acquiescence and reached toward him.
“What are you doing?” he flinched away from her.
“Sit still. You’re as bad as my dad. On those rare occasions in my childhood when we actually went on vacation, he never remembered to put sun-block on his ears. You’ll thank me later.”
“Or we could forego this whole sun worshipping ordeal and I could thank you now.”
“Nice try, Marty,” she shook her head at his grin and painted a line of sunscreen down the length of his nose. “I’m not going back to L.A. without at least a little tropical tan.”
* * * Sydney opened her eyes to find Sark studying her. Judging by his pensive expression, he’d been doing mental exercises while she dozed. Somehow, that made her terribly apprehensive.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he replied, though the lilt in his tone told her he was itching for her to press him. She wanted to pretend she could resist his challenge but knew she was no more capable of letting his ‘nothing’ go than she had been able to stop herself from opening that hotel room door in Bucharest. She narrowed her eyes and frowned, but he merely smirked and looked away.
“What?” she sighed again. He pursed his lips as if considering whether or not to tell her what he’d been pondering. She considered whether or not to throw something at him.
“There was no Julia Thorne,” he said at last. “So, when Julia was with Walker - it was you.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “That’s… interesting.”
“What is?”
“Just something he mentioned. It’s not important.”
“You talked to Simon about me?” She sat up and stared at him with mounting horror.
“The topic might have come up.” He was grinning mercilessly now. “He seemed quite taken with Julia, you know. I believed at first that he was simply trying to impress me, make me jealous. I’ve since revised that opinion. Apparently he wasn’t as prone to exaggeration as I’d assumed.”
She desperately wanted to know what they’d discussed but knew that asking Sark was exactly what he wanted. Unfortunately, it was far too late for her to feign indifference.
“What did he say?”
Sark cocked his head, striking his thoughtful pose again. “Far be it from me to remind you of things you went to such lengths to forget.” He laughed at her aggrieved expression. “I would have enjoyed taking you away from him,” he said. “Do you have any idea how tempting it was to ask for an introduction in Pamplona?”
“I half-expected you to try it.”
“Unfortunately, you seemed edgy enough already. Getting us both killed just to amuse myself for a few moments didn’t seem strategically sound. Watching you try to become invisible through sheer willpower was entertaining, though.”
“Is there anything I’ve done in the past few months that you haven’t found to be just hysterically funny?”
“You nearly broke my nose in Graz. That wasn’t particularly enjoyable.” They both sobered for a moment.
“It had to look convincing.” When Sark nodded, she knew that he’d allowed her to steal back the cube.
“Allison’s death would probably have been sufficient evidence of your superior skills, though,” he noted.
“It wasn’t me…”
“I know - I meant collectively. It appears we all underestimated your Mr. Tippin.” His expression was grim and she regretted the turn of the conversation, although he’d been the one to initiate it.
“Is she…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question, uncertain how to phrase it.
“Actually dead this time?” He smiled humorlessly and shrugged. “If she isn’t, no one is telling me. And that’s a position I’m becoming exceedingly tired of being in.”
“You’re going to do something really stupid soon, aren’t you?”
He gave her another tight smile. “I prefer the phrase ‘boldly imaginative’. And I’ve never said I was going to do anything. Except maybe go back indoors. It’s beginning to get hot out here.”
* * * After a light lunch, Sydney left Sark obsessively drying the last of the dishes and went to lie down. When he followed her into the bedroom a few minutes later, she was reading the paperback she’d started on the airplane.
“Any good?” he asked as he flopped down beside her.
“Not really. But I’m too lazy to do anything this afternoon and not tired enough to sleep.” Sark rolled over on his back and stared up at the ceiling as she turned another page.
“You should have stayed Julia,” he said.
“We’re finished with that discussion,” she replied, not glancing at him.
“I don’t think so.”
“You can think it was as stupid as you want; I just don’t want to hear about it anymore. What’s done is done.”
“But I haven’t finished complaining about it yet.”
She had to chuckle at that and finally looked at him. “Why are you so aggravated about this? It wasn’t as if I did anything to you personally. You’re not the one with the memory holes. You don’t care about the Rambaldi crap. I’m here with you right now. What exactly is it you feel the need to whine about?”
“I’m not whining; I’m griping. And how can you say you haven’t done anything to me personally?” He looked slightly affronted but she could also see the glint of humor in his eyes. “You’re not the only one who lost time. You’ve wasted another six months of my life with your brainless stunt, too. If you’d stayed on as Julia and worked with me, it’s entirely possible that I could have had my money back by now.”
“It’s not really your money,” she said thoughtlessly, then grimaced. Sark was still for an instant before replying.
“It doesn’t matter whether or not he’s still alive,” he said with an indifferent shrug. “It will belong to me once I take it.”
“Then what?” she asked, setting her book aside. “What would you be doing now if we’d somehow managed to liberate your inheritance?”
He shrugged again. “You’re part of this hypothetical exercise. What would you do with eight hundred million dollars?”
“I’d disappear.”
“You’d get bored.”
“I’d take down Sloane.”
“That’s understood. What else?”
“How far do you think that money is going to go?”
“As far as it needs to. Don’t you have any interesting ambitions?”
“Like what?” she asked. “Save the world? Start my own drug cartel? Demolish every Rambaldi artifact I can find?”
“Global salvation is infeasible - no matter what the budget. And the drug trade is too unreliable, full of criminals. Let’s go with the anti-Rambaldi crusade.”
“Seriously,” she said, sliding down in the bed until their faces were even. “What would you really do with all that money?”
“Seriously?” he repeated. “The anti-Rambaldi crusade is beginning to grow on me.” His expression was so sincere that she was almost tempted to believe him.
“You’re still awfully pissed at your dad, aren’t you?” Not a single muscle in his face moved as she brushed her fingers across his cheek. She wondered just how old he’d been when his father had abandoned him for the Rambaldi quest.
“Not every father is blessed with the paternal instincts of Jack Bristow.”
“On the other hand, not all of them have a roomful of gold to pass along to their children either.”
“That’s worked out well for me so far, hasn’t it?” His smile twisted sardonically. “Should you ever inherit Jack’s empire, though, I think you might be surprised by the extent of it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s just say that your father’s contingency plans are of considerably more practical value than my father’s seemed to be.” Again, she could see the bitter tightening of his lips. “What was the first thing Jack said to you after your miraculous return from the dead?” he asked abruptly.
“Sweetheart,” she said, feeling almost guilty and not certain why.
“And Irina? The very first time you saw her again as an adult?”
“She said she’d been waiting almost thirty years.”
“Who are you?” There was a bleakness in his expression that made her heart ache. “That’s what my father said to me. ‘Who are you?’ The man left me eight hundred million dollars worth of bullion and hadn’t even bothered to find out what I looked like now. You’d think that entrusting me with so large a fortune would have prompted some sort of curiosity about me on his part. Irina always knew what you looked like. She kept meticulous track of you.” He laughed suddenly - a sharp, resentful sound. “Did you know he attempted to tell me your scheme to fake his death had been for my benefit? As if it had never occurred to him that I was in prison at the time and an inheritance I’d no knowledge of would be useless to me. I really don’t believe he knew. He had no idea where I was… who I was…”
He fell silent. Sydney nestled closer.
“My mother shot me once,” she offered and was rewarded with the faintest of grins.
“Doesn’t make you special. Your mother has shot practically everyone I know at least once.”
“And you?”
“No. She did break my arm, though.”
“Maybe that means she likes you.”
He laughed then, light and clear, and his dark mood seemed to evaporate. “I don’t care what Irina Derevko thinks of me anymore,” he said as he leaned toward her. “I care what her daughter thinks.”
“Her daughter thinks you’re incorrigible.”
“Is that all?”
“No. She also thinks you’re overdressed and too far away.”
* * * “Maybe we should do something today after all.”
Sydney lifted her head to give him an incredulous look. “You decide this at six-thirty in the evening?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“That is not what you’ve been doing,” she disagreed with a grin.
“Before that.”
“Before that you were whining about how much I’ve cost you in the past six months.”
“I can multi-task,” he said. “And even at half a percentage point, the interest on eight hundred million is no paltry sum. Now, as I was trying to say, I saw a beach bar while I was out running this morning. They have a live band tonight and it’s close enough to walk to.”
“Is it one of those burger and barbeque places?”
“Absolutely not,” he shuddered. “They have real food - lobster and steak.”
“Are you sure you can afford that, you impoverished snob?”
“If you aren’t dressed in seven minutes, I’m going without you.”
* * * Coconut Joe’s was not the type of place Sydney would ever have expected to see Sark eating. Not in a million years. Not wearing shorts and a t-shirt and pair of scruffy sneakers. Not wearing a mischievous grin and sun-freckles across the bridge of his nose and gesturing with his fork when he talked. The entire L.A. branch of the CIA could have walked across Joe’s deck, passed among the umbrella-topped tables, and never looked twice at him. He seemed so dissimilar from the Armani-wearing, Petrus-drinking assassin they were all so familiar with that he could have been someone else entirely.
This is what he would look like if he were a normal person, she thought. She could imagine that in a few more months lived like this, the sun would lighten his hair, darken his skin. He might have a few more scars if she’d managed to make him go windsurfing with her, or rock-climbing. By then, he might have stopped having nightmares that forced her to cover bruises with heavy make-up. He might even have managed to talk her into buying a bikini. They might have become regulars here, like the couple a few tables over seemed to be. Sydney had watched them joke with the bartender and waitress. Several members of the house band had greeted them as they passed. She had watched them talking together, eating, dancing. They seemed… content.
“Euro for your thoughts,” Sark said, flipping the coin at her. She caught it and shook her head.
“Just… wishing for something I can’t have.” It was too much of an admission and his smile softened.
“The only person saying you can’t have it is you.”
“It’s not that easy, Marty.”
“Easiest thing in the world. You’re already here. All you have to do is stay.”
“I can’t.”
“Give me five good reasons why not.”
She blinked at him. “Five?”
“Five.” He held up a hand, waved his fingers at her, and then closed it into a fist.
“My father.”
“Would understand better than anyone.” He raised his index finger. “Send him a postcard.”
“My job.”
He snorted as he lifted another finger. “The CIA has hundreds of officers, thousands of employees. They’ll hardly miss you.”
“I’m one of their best,” she countered, somewhat defensively.
“Contrary to popular belief, Sydney, you are not the center of the universe.” His expression became almost apologetic. “I can understand how you might be tempted to conclude otherwise, of course - between your parents, Arvin Sloane, and even Milo-bloody-Rambaldi. But the world does not revolve around you. The United States government won’t collapse just because you stop working for them. You just aren’t that important.”
“But I am to you?” She wished the words back as soon as she’d spoken them. Sark didn’t seem fazed though. He merely gave her a crooked smile and shook his head.
“My world revolves around me. I can’t change that; not even for you,” he shrugged. “But my organization is considerably smaller. Your value to me would be proportionately more significant than your value to the Agency is.”
“Proportionately more significant,” she repeated. “Is this your sales pitch? Because I’ve heard better.”
“Better than what? I’m offering you the opportunity to take back your life and putting nearly a billion dollars at your disposal to do it. You’re not going to get a deal like this from anybody else.”
“And what do you get out of it? You’re offering me money you don’t have, to do things I intend to do even without your help. What do you want in return?”
“I want you to stay,” he said simply. “You’ve known that from the very beginning.”
She stared at him, unsettled by the directness of his answer. “You’ve never been serious.”
“I’ve always been serious. You’re the best agent I’ve ever worked with or against. Together we’d be unstoppable.”
“That’s it?”
“What sort of proposal do you want from me, Sydney?” She realized abruptly and to her dismay that she wanted him to admit it was more than a business arrangement. Judging by the way he looked away from her for the first time in the conversation, he had come to the same realization.
“This current arrangement is either temporary or permanent,” he said, gazing at some distant point beyond her. “If it’s temporary, I can’t offer any other incentive. It wouldn’t be… fair.”
Sydney found herself blinking rapidly and trying to swallow around a lump. Despite his ambiguous wording, his meaning was abundantly clear to her. There were some promises he could not afford to make until after she’d chosen to stay.
“You haven’t finished answering my question,” he reminded her. “I asked you for five good reasons and you only came up with two untenable ones. Why won’t you stay?”
She sighed and gave him the only other answer she could think of.
“Because it’s wrong.” He stared at her for a long moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed - not sarcastically, as she had expected, but with genuine amusement. “I know; that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard.”
“Second stupidest,” he conceded. “That hole in your head still tops my list, but it’s a very close second. Of all the things you’ve done -of all the things you’ve done with me- how could choosing to stay be any worse?”
“It’s just… It would be like giving up. I’m not ready to give up.”
“And you accused me of preferring to do things the hard way? You are the most exasperating woman I’ve ever met.”
“You’re not exactly a prince, you know.”
“I might be.” He grinned ingenuously and she knew that he wanted to move away from the heavy conversation as much as she did.
“You’re not even remotely royal,” she snorted. “The Agency has been trying to trace how Lazarey ended up with all that gold and it turns out that your family tree is awfully wispy. Have you even looked at it?”
“Frankly, I’ve never been that interested.”
“Your father is a fifth cousin, twice removed from the main line or something. Your ancestors must have been from the goat-herder branch of the family.”
“At least we’re ambitious,” he said loftily.
“And delusional.”
“Now you’re just being petty again.”
* * * She had taken off her sandals to let the water lap at her feet as they headed back to the villa. Sark walked higher in the sand and she laughed at his attempts to stay dry yet near at the same time. Almost without thinking, she slipped her hand into his, forcing him to walk with her in the water. She laughed again at his exaggerated, long-suffering sigh as the waves soaked his shoes. But his fingers stayed firmly laced through hers.
* * *
* * *