Title: Seven Years

Rating: M

Timeline: Early middle of an alternate season four, following from the events of "Mirror Image," which interrupted the canon flow of things in the middle of season three. See "Previously" below for the high points, but actually reading the fic is more fun. I mean, Lauren and Sydney swap bodies—just imagine of the insanity!

Pairings, for the categorically-inclined: Starts out S/V with a Sarkney bent; there's also some light Weiss/Nadia in the mix. All bets are off though, once things get going. (Okay, fine, it's Sarkney, with a heavy dose of Vaughn/Nadia, a little Vaughn/Lauren, and a very little Jack/Irina. But you're ruining all the surprise.)

Notes: The full story has been posted over at SD-1, but it occurred to me it might make sense to upload it over here with "Mirror Image," too. So here it is. Chapters will go up whenever I get a free minute. There are like 40 of them, though, so it may take awhile.

--

Previously:

Thanks to a Rambaldi artifact Sydney steals on a mission midway through season three, Sydney and Lauren wake up in each other's bodies. Sydney's response to the situation is to angst about Vaughn and, after an illuminating phone call on Lauren's phone from Julian Sark, try to get to the bottom of Lauren's involvement in the Covenant and potentially discover more about her missing two years—with Jack's help, of course.

Lauren, meanwhile, takes the opportunity to dress up in black leather and indulge a few of Sark's Bristow-oriented fantasies. She also steals the artifact from the CIA and delivers it to the Covenant.

Sark, however, is ostensibly working for Irina and, after rendering Sydney helpless and capturing Jack, turns Lauren over to Irina. Much to Sydney's surprise, Irina needs her help—Lauren has turned the artifact over to the Covenant, and Irina needs Sydney to work with Sark to get it back. In exchange, Sydney will have her and her father's freedom and her own body back, as well the opportunity to learn more about her time as Julia Thorne. Sydney, unsurprisingly, agrees.

She and Sark are sent on a reconnaissance mission by McKennas Cole. Sark flirts shamelessly, and they run into Ana Espinosa and Arvin Sloane. Sloane wants the disk as well; he and Sydney have a private chat about it while Sark is escorted to a secured room in the basement, in which Sloane tells Syd about him and her mother's affair (and, we learn later, about Nadia). Sydney promptly kicks his ass and frees Sark.

In escaping, Syd and Sark run into none other than Agent Vaughn, who is worried about "Sydney," whose unconscious body was "stolen" from CIA custody, and relieved to see his "wife" safe. Sydney, playing Lauren, distracts Vaughn so Sark can get behind him with a gun. After thoroughly making out with Sark in front of a helpless Vaughn—to make sure there is no doubt in Vaughn's mind about his wife's affiliation—Sydney leaves him handcuffed to a fire escape.

That night, still tormented by their run-in with Vaughn, Sydney gets very, very drunk and sleeps with Sark. Sark doesn't seem to mind.

The next morning, Syd and Sark report to Cole at his compound, where they knock Cole out, steal the disk and a number of Covenant files, and return to Irina. Using the disk, Irina returns both Sydney and Lauren to their rightful bodies, and then insists Sydney stay the night before departing.

Sydney receives a phone call from Sloane: he has Vaughn, and is willing to exchange him at dawn for the disk. Sydney seduces Sark for the card that will give her access to Irina's office, then confronts her mother with the information she received from Sloane: that she has a sister. They fight. Sydney wins, and Irina tells her what the artifact does and why she's been trying to keep it away from Sloane: the dust off the artifact is the final ingredient in a serum that will allow Nadia, once Sloane finds her, to channel Rambaldi. Irina theorizes that Sydney's genetic make-up was close enough to Nadia's for the dust to have an effect on her as well—only instead of channeling a dead man, she switched bodies with her rival, Lauren.

Sydney manages to retrieve the disk—only to be confronted by Sark . . . and her father. Sark explains that Sloane contacted him as well, offering the data Sark needed to regain his inheritance in exchange for his assistance in getting the artifact. After Sydney left his room, he followed her; once he was sure she had Irina under control, he freed her father (and Lauren, who he then allowed to escape) and came to meet her here.

Sydney, Sark and Jack rendezvous with Sloane and exchange the artifact for Vaughn. Sark escapes. Sydney returns home with Vaughn and Jack, and discovers that her copy of the Covenant files is missing.

Sark contacts Sydney; he has the files and, if she meets him, he will return them to her. At their meeting, he returns the disk—he has made a copy for himself first, of course—and tells Sydney what he has discovered from the files: as Julia Thorne, she had learned about her sister, and the reason she erased her own memories was to protect her. The mystery of her missing two years has been solved . . . but Sydney is left more unsettled than ever.

--

Part One

Sydney's image in the mirror was resplendent in white. Her chestnut hair shone under the mass of silk flowers atop her head, and her skin glowed above the modest plunge of her neckline. Her veil lay delicately over her shoulders.

Something was missing. She put one hand to the pendant dangling from the slim chain around her neck, and glanced down at the full skirt, the tips of her shoes beneath the hem.

When she looked up, Sark was standing behind her.

"I told you to leave me alone," she said frostily, checking the backings of her drop earrings and staring firmly at her own face in the mirror.

"I came to offer my congratulations on your marriage," he said. His face was solemn, but there was laughter in his words.

"You've done it," she replied. "Now go."

When he didn't, she spun around to slap him, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him.

"You don't mean it," he murmured.

"Yes, I do," she said, and let him push her up against the glass and kiss her.

The brocade of her bodice pressed into the lapels of his suit; his hands pushed up her dress.

This wasn't right. There was somewhere she was supposed to be. Wasn't there?

His trousers were unfastened. She was hot and open and—

"Vaughn is waiting," she protested as he fucked her against the mirror.

Sark said into her hair, "He never waits long."

She pushed him away from her, and bundled up her skirts to dodge past him.

"It's too late, Sydney," he called after her as the hall telescoped in front of her—had it always been such a long way?—and when she finally reached the double doors at the head of the sanctuary, she could hear the service going on without her.

But it's my wedding, she thought, and pushed open the doors.

At the altar, Vaughn stood next to a woman with Sydney's hair, Sydney's dress, the familiar line of Sydney's own back. Confused, Sydney took a step back. The woman turned. The face was Lauren's, and when she saw Sydney, she smiled. . . .

-

The scream lodged in Sydney's throat as her eyes shot open and she registered where she was: the weight of the blankets across her legs, the heat of another body sleeping next to her own. The room was suffused with pre-dawn darkness, and the clock blinked 4:47.

Sydney turned her head Vaughn slept peacefully beside her, hair ruffled and dark where it fell slightly across his forehead, which was relaxed in sleep. She knew every line, every crease, of his face, she could trace the strength of his profile in her sleep, and, looking at him now, she was lost in tenderness. In love. But the dream—that horrible, uncomfortable dream, the edges of which had already begun to soften, to be forgotten, but still inspired a sense of inarticulate unease inside her. Shot through the unease was arousal, heavy in her belly and choked with guilt. Sark.

She said, softly, "Vaughn," but he merely smiled slightly in sleep and shifted, settling deeper into his pillow.

Sydney closed her eyes, then leaned forward, loosening the muscles that had tightened in sleep—the same muscles she'd strained two night previous fighting with one of Ceasar Allende's men. She'd gotten away, though, and with the priceless painting Allende would give APO anything to get back.

She'd questioned the appropriateness of the mission; her father had simply raised his eyebrows. By any means necessary, he'd reminded her. That was what black ops was all about. She just wished they could find some means that were less . . . well, like petty crime and bribery. It wasn't that she felt like a criminal—she was good at doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. She'd made her name with the CIA doing just that at SD-6. It was just that the whole thing didn't seem quite . . .worthwhile. Maybe she'd spent too much time in more deeply high-risk situations. Or maybe it was just that it didn't feel as if she was moving towards where she really wanted to be, the reason she'd accepted this job in the first place: closer to capturing Sloane.

She left the bed, grabbed a short silk robe from the dresser and slipped it over her arms as she crossed into the main room, heading for the kitchen, closing her bedroom door behind her.

"Did I wake you?" Nadia asked, her hint of an accent warming and softening her words. Her thick dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, bare but for the spaghetti straps of her sleep tank, and her cotton drawstring pants-clad legs were crossed where she sat in one of the dining room chairs. She looked so young, her face unmade, her eyes soft with sleep. She held a steaming cup of tea in her hands.

"No," Sydney said. She forced herself to smile. "Bad dream."

"I'm sorry."

Sydney crossed her arms reflexively, trying to push her own thoughts away.

"The water's probably still hot," Nadia offered when Sydney didn't continue. "I haven't put anything away yet, it's on the counter."

Sydney's second smile was more genuine, and she crossed the room to open the cabinet by the sink. Chamomile. Hers. Nadia only drank Yerba Mate, an import from Argentina. "Reminds me of home," she'd told Sydney, making an effort to sound carefree, flip. But a shadow had darkened her eyes, one that was equal parts wistfulness and hauntedness. Sydney hadn't pressed her—hadn't known how to, then, without shattering the new, tenuous bond between them.

Finding her sister had not been what Sydney had expected. With the data from the Covenant files she'd stolen—plus the intel the CIA had managed to collect while it searched for Sloane—she'd been able to track Nadia to Argentina, and then to Argentinean intelligence. And then Sydney had just . . . picked up the phone and called. No life-and-death mission, no I'm here to rescue you, or You have to trust me. Just a phone call, and then a flight out, and a lot of crying, and the necessity of telling Nadia about her parents. About Sloane—who Nadia knew of, from intelligence reports, of course—and about what he wanted from her. About how crucial it was that she stay away from him.

"You've put me in danger, coming here," Nadia had said, picking up on the doubt in Sydney's voice, on the lingering ghost of Julia Thorne, who had sacrificed everything she knew to keep Nadia safe. "He would be tracking your movements."

"I had to," Sydney said simply.

"I'm glad," Nadia said, and embraced her, and Sydney's eyes had filled with tears. She had a sister.

When Jack Bristow had put together the APO team, he'd invited Nadia to join them and she had accepted. She wanted the chance to get to know Sydney.

"Keeping her close," Jack had explained in his usual brusque tone, "is the most efficient way of protecting her life, and preventing Arvin's endgame." His expression softened, just slightly. "You might invite her to stay with you."

It will be easier to keep an eye on her, she finished in her head, but appreciated her father's gesture all the same. He did care about her. More than anything, she knew—and the idea of it still filled her with uncomplicated pleasure. But everything had an angle, for him. Everything could be played. Sometimes she was afraid she was becoming like that too.

Sydney dropped the tea bag into her old CIA mug and poured the water, watching the bag as it was submerged. Color bloomed from the bag and spread through the whole cup. She added milk and carried it to the table.

"Trouble sleeping again?" Sydney asked, and Nadia answered with a wan smile.

"If you ever want to talk," Sydney began.

"I know," Nadia said, and looked away.

It was at moments like this, alone at night, that Sydney realized how far they really had to go before they could call themselves close. They were drawn to one another at a basic level, but all the little things that tied two people together—the laughter, late night talk, ice cream and games and things that weren't work—they were still missing. On missions, when it counted they were perfectly in sync, instinctually attuned to one another, but the rest of the time, during prep, in the dead space over coms, but particularly at home, it was awkward and stilted. It was going to take time, Sydney reminded herself over and over again. But this many months into knowing one another, the excuse had worn thin. The problem, Sydney suspected, was her. Sydney wasn't at ease with anyone anymore, not really since Francie, and Will.

Nadia, on the other hand, was doing fine. She was charmed by Marshall, had a great relationship with Weiss, and even she and Vaughn had a natural banter Sydney struggled to match with anyone these days, Vaughn included.

Her bedroom door opened and Vaughn came out, bare-chested, drawstring pants slung low on his hips.

"Hey Nadia," Vaughn said.

"Michael." Nadia took a sip of her tea.

Sydney looked up and smiled at him. He returned it and pressed a kiss to the top of her head before heading for the kitchen. When he came back, he had a mug too. He took the seat across from Sydney's.

"We should turn on the lights, as long as we're all awake," Sydney said half-heartedly, glancing up at the darkened fixture above them, but none of them did.