scylla and charybdis

There are a thousand ways to destroy a man, and this, you muse, is but one of them.

A piece of paper, a test result, nothing more, yet it has the power to devastate this man.

You watch him, this man who is legally still your husband, as he stares blankly at the results of the blood tests. The color has drained from his face, leaving him gray and haggard. Do you look as worn? You certainly feel it.

You feel it the way you feel the sun hot on your cheek, the dry breeze tugging at your clothes and smothering you in the dust of years. It weighs you down with second thoughts and self doubts and sorrows too thick to see through to the truth. You don't even remember what it was to believe in one truth anymore.

At last, he raises shock darkened eyes to you. "Why?" he chokes out.

"I had no choice at the time," you reply.

"No choice!" he snaps. He hurls the paper at you, but it flutters and falls to the ground. His eyes follow it down, as though what is typed there will change. You know that nothing will ever change. The past is past, the present always slipping between your fingers, the future, an ever narrowing gap between the perils of Scylla and Charybdis.

"My son," Jack says slowly, raising his gaze to meet yours.

"My son," you reply. "You had our daughter."

It was never a fair trade, never an even balance, it was only that that small life came with you, was in you, when you left. They took him away from you, of course, once he was born. There were years when you didn't know what had become of him. Years before you could take him back and make him yours again. You never even had the chance to name him. Jack always knew where Sydney was, for all the good it did him. Until now. Now he is breaking and this is only one more blow.

"Why now?"

Why did he even come here, you wonder? You called and he came, as you knew he would, as if it were inevitable. But you know his reasons for coming and they aren't so different from those that brought you here too. He wanted what he thought you could give him, wanted his child back. That's all you want too, but like him, you can't have it. It's bitter, bitter helplessness that has brought both of you to each other again.

Because you can do nothing now and you do not know if he will.

"Get him out, Jack," you say. "Get him out of that cage."

"Give me Sydney back."

"Jack, I don't have her."

"Then where is she, damn it!?"

You don't know. You only know where Sark is and it isn't enough. You'll give Jack his son as if that will somehow ease the pain of what's been lost already.

"Jack---"

"Does he know?"

You can see all the questions in his eyes now. The raw regret of knowing he was so close and saw Sark, but didn't see his son. He lost two children to you and to Sloane and never knew it until too late. Unless this is another lie, another manipulation. And if it's true, how will you use it against him? Did his son face him across a conference table at SD-6 and live that lie, knowingly? Did he somehow do something that brought this hell down on his head?

You shake your head, hair slipping loose to lie along your cheek. Years ago, he would have reached over and tucked it away from your face. You do it yourself, slipping the strands behind your ear in a gesture you recognized in your daughter, just as you recognized Jack's unsettling stare in Sark's watchfulness.

"No. I never told him."

You never even told him you were his mother when you came and took him from the boarding school that acted as a cover for the Project Christmas training. He's always been smart, you were so proud of everything you learned about him once you found him, he probably has guessed. He had no other reason to hold onto his loyalty to you.

"God."

"Please, Jack."

Jack scrubs at his face with one hand.

"You're asking me to betray my country."

"I'm asking you to save your son. Do you want to see him sent to Camp Harris? He'll die there." You know that cell Sark is in, know only the promise of eventual release kept you sane there, and he does not have that. Sark is a fierce hawk, not meant to be mewed up, and he will be going wild inside. You face Jack without pride and beg for the first time. "Please, Jack. Please. I made this choice once and I was wrong. I was wrong."

You were wrong and you paid for it. Jack paid for it too. Sydney paid for it, maybe with her life. You don't know, because she's gone. Sark, your son, is paying for your mistakes right now and you want to plead with Jack not to fail him as you did. You can never convey the regrets that live within you or the fear that has taken over.

You wait, wondering what his choice will be.

There are a thousand ways to destroy a man, but it only takes one.