Title: Lay Me Down
E-mail: eli @ popullus.net
Rating: PG-13
Posted: Oct. 20, 2003
Spoilers: Anything so far in S3, plus some stuff I'm just making up.
Summary: Answers aren't always possible.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to JJ & Co. I'm just mucking around. Read.
A/N: Yeah, this totally didn't go where I expected it to. Make of that what you will. Thanks to Rez for keeping everyone from shooting themselves in the foot.

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She's always been full of surprises, but this middle of the afternoon deadlock is--

"Fascinating, Sydney, but don't you think you should put the gun down, considering?"

"Considering what, Sark?" she spits, not letting the barrel of his spare Beretta waver, though it's gratifying to note that she's panting harder than him.

He gives in to the burn in his shoulder -- chiding himself for not remembering her fondness for random objects, such as the letter opener she swept off the desk when she first pounced -- and lowers his arm, and his own weapon with it. He doesn't re-engage the safety. There is confidence, and then there is stupidity.

She frowns. "What are you doing?"

Rhetorical inquiry or not, he doesn't bother responding as he walks back to the desk.

"Don't think I won't shoot you in the back, Sark. The CIA will give me crap, but then they won't care."

He smiles at that and picks up the bottle of water he'd left there hours before. Once he turns to face her again, the desktop serves well enough as a makeshift seat, although he lowers himself to it with care to avoid the bruise that he can already feel decorating his hip from a kick. Twisting the cap off the bottle with the heel of his gun hand, he cocks his head to contemplate her threat. "You talk quite a bit about shooting people, but rarely do you get around to actually performing the act."

She releases her sharp indrawn breath with words tainted with the bitterness that must fuel them: "I managed to shoot Doren, didn't I? Three times. I remember that much."

The twinge is irritation, his ego insists. Yet when he takes a deep swallow of water that isn't quite tepid, he finds it's also not cold enough to clear his throat until he gets halfway through the bottle. Only then does he lower it. "Everyone has to take baby steps."

"You condescending--"

"Let's not stoop to name-calling, Sydney." He looks around at the disaster he himself condescendingly called a hotel room only 20 minutes before. Papers can be straightened and he'll forgive the bullets that went by as he rolled from the slick-quilted comforter to the stained floor. Those holes in the bed, however, will never be easily explained, even in this establishment so far off the tourist strip of La Rambla. He brings his eyes back to hers and raises an eyebrow. "After all, I would be much more justified in hurling a few choice phrases your way after your display here this afternoon."

"Why are you always talking?" She steps close, yet still just out of reach unless he lunges and takes advantage of her fixation. The gun finally points away from him as her hand goes up to press against her brow, but he doesn't reach for it, even when she drops it to her side. "You're always talking when anybody else, anyone sane wouldn't be. What the hell is wrong with you?"

A smile curves his lips. In a second, his weapon is up and resting against her temple. "Would you rather I simply shot you?"

She blinks and then, when he maintains a bland expression, her eyes narrow. "No."

Sark lifts the gun away; she follows the motion as he places it on the desk, his hand remaining around it. "Then why don't you tell me what you would like. Why are you in Barcelona, Sydney? More precisely, why are you here?"

After another moment she steps away, the gun dangling, a forgotten toy she holds on to because she hasn't remembered to let go. He watches as she paces the length of the rug and back again, waits, and she rewards him with a mumble.

"Would you care to repeat that?"

She glares at him. "I need to know. I need to know what they did to me, no, why they did it. My father can't find out no matter who he calls on or stares down, the CIA can't even be allowed to think of guessing, and something tells me, more than ever, that you're my best shot. So I'm taking it."

Another surprise, and one he'll savor for a moment. "And you deemed attack the best way to convince me to assist you?"

"You pointed a gun at me first!"

"Ah, yes, that would be the normal thing to do when someone -- not very silently, may I point out -- picks the lock on my door."

She mumbles again. He almost expects her to hang her head or scuff her foot against the floor. When she doesn't oblige him on either image, he clears his throat.

"I...didn'tthinkyou'dbehereyet."

He can't stop the bubble of laughter, doesn't even try, and this time he won't apologize, either. "You fool." Her mouth settles into a sullen line and he laughs harder, earning him a raised fist, as well. "I know why I'm out of practice, but you shouldn't be."

Her mouth falls open. It really is amazing she's able to perform her job at all, he reflects, so clearly do her thoughts show on her face.

"You don't just know how to find out what happened, you know." Shocked as she is while she says this, she pales when logic kicks her the next step. "That means you know about..."

"You employing your knife-wielding expertise on my father?" Watching her blanch even further is amusing until she wavers, weaves, and he shifts his balance forward, wondering if he'll have to keep her from collapsing. Fortunately, she pulls herself upright, lifting her chin as if inviting a free shot.

He has no inclination to take it.

"They enjoyed telling me." He closes his eyes, the better to see again the smug look in Sanko's eyes. When Sark looks at Sydney again, he realizes he'd rather not categorize the expression in hers as anything more than "soft." "It wouldn't be amiss to call it bragging," he muses. "What they'd managed to do to you. What they did with you..."

The memory of her, standing tall before him in Los Angeles, angered beyond fear, had been a spark of comfort he hadn't known he needed while Sanko shared his accomplishments. Something since then had changed for her. Something had changed for many...

"--feeding me information, haven't you?"

"Hmm?" He frowns when her left hand flashes in front of his face to catch his attention.

"You awake, Sark?"

"Yes." He snaps off the word and leans away, annoyed, unable to tell how long his attention had wandered.

"Right."

Long enough for the softness to dissipate, apparently. He considers that a boon right now.

She looks around the room and then back to sweep her eyes up and down him. He knows the picture he makes: sleep-rumpled plain cotton shirt, right sleeve growing dark now with his blood; boxers a size too big and threatening to slip; bare feet, toes curling against the chilled floor. He's also sure she won't recognize what that picture means.

Disbelief makes her voice hard. "You suddenly show up, hiding from the Covenant in a hotel more than a couple steps down from your usual tea-and-crumpets-at-four hospitality, and you're going to tell me there's nothing wrong with this picture?"

He swears, thoroughly pissed at himself for not supposing that she would see more clearly in the heat of the moment than she did two years ago. Then what exactly she said sinks in. Anger pushes him to his feet and close enough that he can discern the scent of her skin under the sheen of sunscreen.

"I am not hiding."

"You're making it harder than usual for anyone to find you, Sark. That amounts to the same thing."

He returns her sneer with one of his own instead of reaching out and shaking her. "You seem to have done the job well enough."

"God!" She throws up her hands and he watches the shock flash across her face when she notices the weapon still held loosely in her right hand. She backs up, eyes locked on the Beretta, not looking at him again until she is sufficiently far enough away.

"Are you going to tell me why they did it? Why they took me, took two years of my life, made me take your father's life, made me--" She cuts herself off before her voice can rise too far, presses her lips together. "Just tell me why, Sark."

They are words, little words that he avoids saying at all times, at all costs, but, "I don't know."

A line appears between her eyebrows and he can see her fighting the oncoming tears. "Sark, I won't beg."

"While it would be amusing..." as intended, her eyes dry at that, "...there's no need. They didn't see fit to impart that piece of information and I apologize, but I'm no longer in a position to seek it out for you."

"But--"

"I'm not hiding, but neither am I willing to hand out flyers pinpointing my whereabouts, Sydney."

Watching her slump, the fire inside her doused, isn't enjoyable. But he's simply too damn tired. The fire has always been at her beck and call, and she's more than capable of relighting it on her own.

He tries for his usual ennui, hoping it will bring this encounter -- one that has spun farther out of control than he thought possible -- to a close. "Go home. Continue your quest. Confide in your unbearably loyal friends, who I'm positive will be more than pleased to help you gather your answers. You didn't even bring your own weapon and I would like to get back to my nap."

Relief and disappointment make an uncomfortable mixture in his gut when he gets no response, when he sees her eyes close in defeat as she turns to the door.

She pauses after opening it, the rumble of trucks and shouts of vendors only two floors down flying at them through the window she has revealed. That would explain the lack of outcry at their earlier exchange, he realizes. He had fired only a single shot, easily missed in the background of a big city, but he had counted each and every one that she loosed in her drive to keep him from firing another and had been almost anticipating an irate manager or disturbed guest.

Distracted by amusement, he barely snags the pistol before it lands at his feet. v "I'm not apologizing to you."

He curls his fingers around the weapon, reacquainting himself with its weight and contemplating possibilities. "I wouldn't expect you to."

A nod, subdued acceptance of their ongoing dance, is her only response.

It is too much.

She flinches back and he sees her hand tighten on the door handle as he raises the gun and levels it at her head. Before she can spin and yank the barrier shut, he squeezes the trigger.

The blast disappears into the racket from the street.

She gasps, looks down, sees just what he does -- nothing.

"Nine live, Sydney, one blank."

He had been sure he had time; time to rest behind a door to which he had the key. She disproved that with her arrival, and he's grateful for the admonition.

However, having now provided confirmation of her earlier assumption about his circumstances, he feels the chill of leaving himself more open than when he said those three little words. He can't afford that any more than the tension that invades when it seems as if she will say something, offer something, so he shoves it back with a shrug and tosses the now-useless weapon on the bed. Tonight, should he find the reserve he stashed here years ago intact, he'll be able to replace it easily enough.

She stares at the gun, not at him, but he can see the heat begin to rise. Instead of letting it out in a taunt, a laugh, she slants him an indecipherable look and turns away.

Standing there in the mess she is leaving behind, he can't be sure, but there might be a murmur -- a word -- that does not come from the door closing behind her.

Later, lying on the relatively-intact side of the bed, the cracks in the ceiling make no sense as he wonders whether he wants remember hearing, "Thanks."

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