Title: My Enemy’s Enemy
Fandom: CSI/Alias
Pairing: Sara/Sark ish, Sara/Grissom
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,694
Prompt: 22 Enemies
Notes: This? Is entirely
He watches her from across the bar, marvelling at how much and how little she’s changed since he last saw her. If he’d met her in another set of circumstances, he would have said that she hadn’t changed a bit, hadn’t aged a day. Up until recently, he knows he would have been right, because he’s been keeping his eye on her, makes it a point to know the whereabouts of all his nemeses, both current and former. He finds it easier to avoid a bullet in the back of the head that way, and besides, one never knows when circumstances might prove them useful.
Like now for example.
She still looks the same – slender body, shoulder length brown curls just the right kind of unkempt, the way it would look as if someone had spent time running their fingers through it. His fingers itch to, as they used to all those years ago, not that she’d ever let him get that close. He knows, though, that no-one, except for maybe her, has run their fingers through that hair, not for the last two months at any rate.
It’s the last two months that he sees in the slump of her shoulders, the lines around her brow and eyes, in particular in the shake of her hand as she raises her glass to her lips. It’s not the first drink she’s has tonight, nor is it the first night this week he’s found her here, and he wonders suddenly if his plan will work. The woman he knew would have spotted him long before now, would have been stealthily approaching him from behind, ready to demand answers from him.
Then again, a woman who’s gone through what she’s gone through can be excused losing some of her observational skills. Besides, if she were the woman he remembered, he wouldn’t be going anywhere near her.
A quick signal to the barman and he’s ordering a drink for her, with instructions that it’s delivered, “From an old friend at the bar.” The waitress takes it over to her booth, conveniently standing in such a position that he can see everything that’s taking place, and he sees her looking up curiously, sees the waitress gesture in his direction. Brown eyes follow the path of the waitress’s hand, and he takes a small amount of pleasure in the flare of her eyes, the way that her hand flies to her belt, as if to draw her gun.
It’s not there of course; Captain Brass took it from her when he put her on Compassionate Leave.
He smirks, partly in satisfaction, partly because he knows it’ll piss her off, then takes his own drink in hand, slides from his stool and approaches her.
“Why, Miss Sidle,” he drawls, sliding into the booth across from her. “Anyone would think you weren’t pleased to see me.”
She raises an eyebrow, her face a rather impressive mask that he remembers all too well; she still gives nothing away, not even now. “I can’t imagine why.” She lifts the drink, holds it up to the light, turns the glass slowly this way and that. “Is this poisoned?”
“Sara, you wound me.”
“Not yet.” The riposte is immediate. “Though I must admit… I was wondering when you were going to come over and talk to me.” He blinks as she places the drink down on the table, an almost smile playing around her lips. “Three nights in a row now… and you’ve been following me in daylight too… quite sloppily, I might add. You’re slipping Julian.”
Sara leans back in her seat, back ramrod straight against the booth, hands flat on the table as if poised for attack. “I suppose the fact that you haven’t tried anything yet… and that we’re in public… means I’m safe… which means there’s something you want with me.”
“A reasonable assumption. And from the look in your eyes, I’m guessing that you can’t possibly imagine what I could want from you… much less that we could have a common goal.”
Her laughter is harsh, humourless. “What could we possibly have in common?”
He leans forward, says two words that stop her in her tracks. “Arvin Sloane.”
At that, Sara blinks, confused. “Sloane?”
“Yes. Our mutual… friend… has acquired some rather interesting Rambaldi artefacts. Which I would like to acquire for my own purposes. Your help would be… appreciated.”
This time when Sara laughs, it is softer, more amazed than anything else. “You’re insane,” she tells him. “You seriously expect me to help you steal from Arvin Sloane? From the CIA? What makes you so sure that I won’t be on the phone the second you leave, telling you what he has planned?”
“You don’t know what-”
“Gil Grissom.”
The name renders Sara mute, and if he were
capable of any such emotion,
Almost.
“He was so kind to you, wasn’t he, your old college mentor, when you said you wanted to leave your government research post for a new start? Tell me, Sara, did you have feelings for him when you went to work with him, or did they come later?”
He pauses to let her answer the question, which she does by raising the glass he’d sent over to her lips and downing half the liquid in one gulp. “Shut up,” she rasps.
“Such a tragedy, what happened to him… fast cars and careless drivers are a terrible combination… but tell me, didn’t you think it was strange that it happened so soon after you told him all about your past? Your real past, that is?”
He lets his words settle in her brain, measures their progress by how quickly the colour leaches from her cheeks. “How did you…”
“Because, our dear friend Arvin has been
keeping tabs on you since you left his employ… you don’t think he’d let one of
his prized assets walk away clean, do you? And since he’s been keeping tabs on
you, and I’ve been keeping tabs on him…”
“You’re insane.” Sara repeats her words of earlier, but this time, her voice is shaking, and he can see her battling to stay afloat as her world falls to pieces around her.
“What was the one rule of working for Arvin Sloane? That you must never tell anyone outside of SD6 about the work you did. That you tell everyone that you were involved in government research, and that neither the CIA nor SD6 could ever be mentioned. But you broke those rules, didn’t you Sara? You left SD6, you fell in love… and you forgot the rules. You didn’t want any secrets, so you told Gil Grissom all about the work you used to do. About your father’s involvement in Project Christmas, about how your mother killed him in a drunken rage when she found out that he’d been treating you as… what was the charming phrase you had? ‘A glorified lab rat,’ that was it.”
“No.” Sara is by now a ghastly shade of grey, head swivelling from side to side as if by moving constantly, the words will fail to find her ears. “No.”
“You weren’t to know your every word was
constantly monitored… or that Sloane knew the danger you didn’t. That your
Grissom was a curious man. And as if that wasn’t dangerous enough, a curious
man with contacts. A man who might be moved to look into his lover’s past,
thereby exposing Sloane’s lies… exposing that SD6 has no connection with the
CIA. That it’s a front for an
“We found against the
“Sloane made you believe that… but it’s a lie Sara. All lies. And by telling Grissom your secret past… you signed his death warrant. Two days later, he was mowed down in the streets… by a car that was never found, a driver that was never identified, who disappeared into thin air, despite the best attempts of Las Vegas’s finest officers… you’re an intelligent woman Sara… you must have wondered.”
Something flashes in her eyes, and he knows he’s hit a nerve, knows that the thought must have at least entered her mind. “Think about it Sara,” he says, leaning forward, resting his hands beside hers, careful not to touch her, not wanting to break the spell. “How else would I know all this?”
There is a long silence. Then, “You’re telling me that Arvin Sloane had Grissom killed.”
Sara holds eye contact for a full minute, and he knows she’s waiting for any flicker of doubt. When she doesn’t find it, she lets out a heavy sigh, drops her head and runs her fingers through her hair. He waits, knowing what the outcome will be.
So he’s not the least bit surprised when she looks up again and her eyes are brimming with a fury that’s all too familiar to him from their previous encounters together. “You want me to help you steal Rambaldi devices.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what I want in return?”
Just as he had planned it, and
“Well then…” Sara raises her glass, holds it in midair. “To the enemy of my enemy.”