White Lies
He can accept one woman returning from the dead. That it was Sydney Bristow didn't surprise him.
Two, however, staggers even him.
She is deadly and beautiful, and her mouth tastes of lipstick and copper. He can't even smile in the face of this: resurrection. Not again.
It's only hours later, when his legs are entangled with Allison's and her fingers laced with his, that he can truly begin to think again.
Sydney and Allison, alive beyond comprehension. Lazarey (his father, he underlines in his mind) dead. His inheritance swallowed by the Covenant, and his every step since ostensibly to their tune.
Something is terribly wrong with his world, and he's going to play carefully until he has control of the board again. He misjudged his place once, and spent two years imprisoned. It will not happen again.
The Covenant, or whichever Covenant thug delights in tormenting him, has not broken him yet.
They will not break him through her.
Allison's skin, darker than his memory insists, is marred, her shoulders jagged from Bristow's bullets. He traces that warning with his hands, his lips. He does not pause to contemplate anger.
He won't say Sydney's name while lying in Allison's bed. It violates something in him, though he can't articulate what.
She twines her body round his, again, and again, and he decides that thought, for the moment, isn't necessary.
She is, she lives, and that is enough.