TNLTL Ch 6~10

[amaliak]

am fairly agile
I can bend and not break
Or I can break and take it with a smile
And I am so resilient
I recover quickly
I'll convince you soon that I am fine ...

SIX: “Bend and not break”

PRESENT

The sounds of the metal bars clanging announced the arrival of another visitor.

But instead of the usual CIA lackey, Sark was pleasantly surprised that after nearly a month, Sydney had finally come to see him again.

“I need information,” she got right to the point.

“Good morning to you too, Sydney,” Sark responded, choosing to fall into their usual banter.

Sydney ignored his comment.

“There’s something I need to discuss with you, so if you wouldn’t mind…” she continued, dropping off the end of her sentence.

Sark considered her for a moment. “I appreciate your having the common courtesy of asking my permission first, Agent Bristow,” he answered her, his lips twitching into a smirk at seeing her tense.

“But seeing as I have nothing pressing to attend to at the moment,” he continued, “I am at your disposal.”

He expected Sydney to come back with some smart remark but to his bewilderment, she didn’t. instead, she motioned for the guard to open the door of the cell, disposing of her gun before entering.

Sark didn’t know what to say when he saw her pull up a chair and sit at the small table allowed to him. She placed a file on the table’s surface and glanced back over to him, everything in her manner strictly professional. She motioned for him to take a look, and he complied, curious, more of Sydney’s behavior than of what was in the actual file.

That all changed, however, as he sat down across from her and opened up the folder.

She might as well have just punched him in the gut.

“Allison Doren,” Sydney said in a steely voice.

Sark glanced up at her from the papers before him.

“I’m sure that you’re aware that she’s alive,” Sydney continued. She gestured to the papers in his hands. “That is everything that the CIA knows about her. Take a minute to look it over.”

Sark closed the file, sliding it back across to her. “I’ve seen it,” he said in a flat tone.

He’d slipped on his game face, knowing that this was not going to be an easy conversation. He might have been taught by the master, but Sydney was raised by the only one able to challenge Irina. Jack had taught his daughter well, and right now, she was in full agent mode. Sark had to be on full alert. There was no room for mistakes.

Syndey kept her stare firmly on him. “Then I need you to tell me something more than what’s in here,” she tapped the top of the folder with her finger.

“What I can tell you, I’m not so sure that is anyone’s business to know,” Sark responded.

Sydney’s gaze narrowed into a glare. “Don’t get smart with me, Sark. You can cooperate…”

“I have been cooperative, Agent Bristow.”

“Then I want to remind you that your continued cooperation is what will guarantee you…comfort here.”

Sark raised an eyebrow at her, and crossing his arms and seemed to study her for a moment, evidently deciding what he wanted to do.

“Tell me what it is you want to know,” he said evenly, “and then we’ll see if I can help you.”

Sydney leaned forward, resting folded hands on the table.

“I found it interesting that your transcripts don’t mention that you would have made any contact with Allison in the year and a half that you were out of custody.”

“That’s because I didn’t,” Sark replied, quickly tossing away her accusatory tone.

Sydney narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you expect me to believe that you wouldn’t want to contact an agent that was under your orders and possibly compromised?”

Sark set his jaw. “Ms. Doren way have been under my supervision, by she was Sloane’s operative. He brought her in, he issued her orders. I was merely her contact. After my capture, I had no reason to look for her again. I assume that if anyone would know more about her, it would be Mr. Sloane.”

Sydney tensed at the mention of Sloane and Sark knew she had good reason to be angry.

The slimy son of b!tch had, for some unfathomable reason, been pardoned by the United States government and was now living freely in the outside world, successful and happy. Sark himself felt betrayed by Sloane even though Irina had warned him against placing any kind of trust on the man.

“As for what I expect of you,” Sark continued, “I expect you to believe the truth and that the truth is what I’m giving you.”

“How can I be sure of that?” she countered.

“Because, Sydney,” he answered, his voice becoming lower and only slightly softer, “When have you ever known me to lie to you?”

Sydney seemed to be taken back by this, blinking in surprise when she realized it was true. Sark felt like smiling as he saw her mask slip a bit before making her recovery.

Struggling not to fidget, Sydney went on, “We have learned that Doren has been working for the Covenant. Do you know who they are?”

“I’ve had some run-ins with them, yes,” Sark answered, also getting his head back in the game.

“We’ve received intel indicating that Doren’s recently been looking for you. Since no one knows that you turned yourself in, we have to be careful about how we handle the situation. We need to know why she would want to find you.”

So, suddenly Allison was interested in finding him, he thought bitterly.

“I doubt that she simple wants to sit down and have a chat to catch up,” Sark told Sydney in a sarcastic tone.

Seeing that she continued to glare at him, he sighed, glancing away with a bored look.

“More than likely, she’d making inquiries for the Covenant,” Sark told her.

“Why would the Covenant be looking for you now? They could have easily found you when you were out of custody,” Sydney asked, still questioning everything he said, despite his earlier comments. Some habits were just hard to break. Sark felt like smiling at her typical behavior.
Instead, he plunged on, “The Covenant has probably figured out that I have something that they want.”

“And what is that?”

“Money.”

Sydney gave his a skeptical look. “Money? You mean that’s what this is about? There are about a million different ways for them to obtain money.”

”Yes, but they’re looking for a large amount they could obtain legally.”

Here Sark made a deliberate pause.

“They want to get my inheritance.”

Sydney frowned. “Your inheritance?”

“Yes,” Sark answered coolly. “I received a considerable amount of money upon the death of my father. Apparently, by what you’re telling me, the Covenant finally figured it out.”

“But how would they get the money? Don’t tell me they expect you to just give it to them,” Sydney commented.

“I’m sure they plan to hold something over my head,” Sark told her. “Believe it or not, as powerful as they claim to be, they are in a bit of a tight spot for money.”

“How much money is it?” Sydney asked.

“Eight hundred million,” he answered easily.

Sydney nearly blanched. $800, 000, 000??? Holy sh!t!

“Who was your father?” Sydney asked, unable to imagine who would have been able to leave Sark with that kind of money.

“Really, Sydney, I’m surprised at you. Had you done a little bit research you would know that answer to that question.”

He watched her prickle at his teasing, and ready for what he was about to tell her, curious to see her reaction.

“My father’s name was Adrian Lazarey,” he said carefully. It was almost worth everything to see Sydney go pale and then struggle to conceal her discomfort.

“Have you heard of him?” he asked her. It was obvious that she was already aware of the part she played in the murder. He now was making it perfectly clear to her by the way he was looking at her that he knew all about it too.

Sydney shifted slightly in her chair, her expression and manner now changed to apprehension while choosing her words carefully.

“What do you know about your father’s death?” she asked.

Sark leaned back in his chair, as if suddenly bored again, “That has nothing to do with your original question, Agent Bristow. But I can tell you that I know that he was murdered and the one or ones responsible have yet to be identified.”

He watched with a hint of amusement as Sydney debated pushing the issue further to satisfy her curiosity or try to save face.

He decided to make it easier for her.

“Whether Allison is up to, I can think of one person that would be safest to approach to find out more information about her whereabouts,” he said evenly. “You’ll find him in Seville.”

* * * *

“Sydney, what do you think you’re doing?” Jack asked angrily once he and his daughter were safely outside the JTF and the hearing range of any possible eavesdroppers.

“I’m going to find out what this guy knows,” Sydney told him. “Dixon’s approved the op, and besides, Weiss and Vaughn are coming with me.”

“I don’t think I need to tell you that this is a bad idea,” Jack argued.

“I want to find Allison, Dad,” Sydney said, struggling to keep the emotion from her voice. “I know somehow she will have some kind of answers to what happened to me. And I have a score to settle with her. If this guy can help me find her, I’m going to go for it.”

“I’m not surprised that Dixon approved. But what I can’t believe is that you are choosing to believe Sark. To trust what he’s telling you is true and not some type of trap.”

“Don’t talk me out of it Dad!” Sydney suddenly snapped. “You’ve had absolutely no problem siding with Mom when it gets you what you want. I’m trusting what Sark says, and that’s it.”

“Sydney, you can’t compare this to me and your mother. It’s something totally different,” Jack responded. “Sark has never…”

“Dad, stop!” Sydney interrupted him, holding up her hand. “Out of all the people in my life, the only one, the only one that has never lied to me has been Sark. What kind of sick joke is that?”

Jack Bristow seemed taken back for a moment, knowing that he didn’t have a response that could counter such an argument.

“I just want all of this to be over,” Sydney said, her eyes filing with tears. “I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what I have to do. I just want it all to end so that I can go about reconstructing my life in peace.”

Jack silently took his daughter in his arms, holding her as she cried, knowing that she deserved to have some peace, and accepting that if nothing else, he had to trust in her decisions.

___________________________________________________________

I need someone
a person to talk to
someone who'd care to love
could it be you
could it be you?

SEVEN: “Kiss off”

“Hello,” Sydney said as she saw the man he recognized as Walker walk over to her.

“Hullo,” he said before grabbing her by the waist and kissing her firmly on the lips, quickly invading her personal space by sliding his tongue in her mouth.

As quickly as it started, it was over, and Simon stepped away with a satistied smirk on his lips. “It’s good to see you Julia.”

Sydney, still startled, acted on instinct, and planted a resounding slap across the man’s cheek.

He grabbed his jaw, flexing it a bit before chuckling. “I guess I deserved that. Still, it was worth it,” he said, giving her a crooked smile.

Julia? Sydney thought frantically, Oh God..does he know me from the last two years? Why didn’t Sark mention that?

“I hope you enjoyed it, because it’s going to be the last time,” Sydney answered, wondering why on earth she suddenly took on an English accent, more refined than Simon’s own cockney.

But Simon didn’t seem to find anything out of place. “Well, in any case, I’m glad to see you, Jules. But tell me,” Simon said, sting down and motioning for her to take a seat across from him. “What brings you back here? I haven’t seen or heard from you in, what? Six months? And out of blue you decide to drop in?”

‘Well, you know me,” Sydney replied thinking that it was best to be ambiguous as possible. So it was definitely true that Simon knew her. And from the looks of it, they’d often been in contact, she didn’t want to think about just in ways they knew each other, judging by that intimate greeting. Could she possibly tell her anything about Lazarey? It was time to fish for information.

Simon lit up a cigarette and took a drag while being quite conspicuous about looking her up and down and Sydney tried not to squirm under his gaze. “Well, what’s with the new look?” he asked, motioning to her attire, “I barely recognized you.”

“You don’t like it?” Sydney asked leaning back and trying to look playfully flirty.

“No, I do,” Simon responded, with a smile. “But what are you up to now, Jules? Or is it possible that you’ve finally thought the better of it and decided to take me up on my offer?”

By the way he was looking at her, Sydney knew that he couldn’t be talking about business. She glanced down for a second, trying to think how to get out of this fast. Better to get right to the point, she figured as she gave Simon what she hoped he took as a teasing look. “Maybe some other time.”

Simon’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really?” he asked.

Sh!t! Wrong answer! Sydney realized too late.

“Well, now, that’s interesting,” Simon continued, taking another drag from his cigarette. “Considering most of the time I even mention it you tell me to go screw myself. Is it possible that you finally got bored of that mystery man in your life?”

Sydney stored that comment for further reference later and plunged on with her original plan. Playing with the edge of the table next to her, she said casually, “I’m looking for someone. And I was under the impression that you could help me locate them.”

Simon chuckled, “I’m a thief, Julia, not a bloodhound.”

Sydney leveled her gaze at him once more. “I’m looking for Allison Doren.”

Simon tensed at the mention of the name. Covering up for it, he carefully extinguished his cigarette, avoiding Sydney’s eyes. Then he leaned forward on his knees, his eyes, playful before, now narrowed and unreadable.

“Why would you need me to find her?” he asked carefully. “I’m sure you would know where to find her.”

“Since I’m here,” Sydney answered, “That should tell you that I haven’t been able to.”

Simon stares at her for a moment before leaning back once again, a frown on his features. “Well, that’s odd.”

Sydney knew she was holding her breath, casually glancing around to see where she could make a quick escape in case this all went straight to hell, like she had a sneaking suspicion that it was.

“Julia, you know that Alli and I…well, it’s been over for quite some time,” Simon told her, in a way that showed her that he found it unusual that she would be asking. “I would think it’d be easier for her chum to find her, and not her ex.”

Holy crap, her ex?!?

“Allison and I were hardly chummy,” Sydney heard herself say. Well, at least that was true.

“Well, that’s true,” Simon agreed. He frowned a bit as he seemed to consider it. “But I’ll come clean with you. I have seen Alli.”

“Do you know where I can find her?” Sydney asked, glad to be finally getting somewhere. But she had let the eagerness in her voice slip out.

“Ah,” Simon said with a smile, knowing that he had gained the upper hand. “Now, love, you I can’t just ante up all the goods without getting something back.”

Sydney set her jaw and fixed her gaze on Simon. “What do you want?”

Simon’s smile grew wider. “Well, as it happens, I’m in the market for a new team member. We’ve got a job that needs to be done soon and the man I had…well, it’s just hard to get good help these days, you know.”

Sydney raised an eyebrow, signaling for him to continue.

“I know you’ve got contacts. I want a security expert, no later than tonight,” Simon said, his smile gone now, talking now in a strict businesslike manner. “You get ‘em, and I’ll give you what you want. Sound fair?”

Sydney seemed to hesitate for a minute. “I’ll do it,” she answered in that curious accent.

Simon looked clearly surprised. “You? What not much money murder anymore?”

Sydney lifted an eyebrow and gave Simon a smile. “I’m a woman of many talents.” She dropped the smile and gave him a serious look. “And I’m your man.”

Simon smirked at this. “Alright then.”

* * * *

When Vaughn sat down across from her, Sydney didn’t want to look up. But him clearing his throat forced her to raise her eyes to him.

“There’s no that can improvise better than you,” he started, “But when Walker called you Julia…you didn’t look surprised.”

Sydney let her gaze rest on the man before her. He was looking at her with a look of concern that she used to find endearing.

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“I think you’re hiding something from me,” Vaughn answered.

“So what if I am?” Sydney countered, feeling her anger begin to rise.

“Sydney, you can’t…”

“Stop it, Vaughn,” Sydney hissed, cutting him off. “I don’t’ have any reason to tell you anything. You’ve forfeited that right.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Vaughn asked.

Sydney leaned back in her seat, slipping on a cold mask as she leveled a glare on him. “It means that if you have doubts about me, put them in a report and don’t bother me with them.”

Vaughn’s mouth came slightly open as his frown deepened.

“Who died?” Weiss asked, appearing to stand beside them as the plane approached Los Angeles.

* * * *

“How was Milan?”

Sydney slipped off her jacket to lay it across Simon’s bed two days later. “I’ve got what we need.”

“Mmm,” he answered, not really paying attention to her.

Sydney sat on the edge of the bed near to him. “You okay?”

Simon’s attention snapped to her and he gave her a crooked smile. “Never better.”

Sydney stood up, grabbing his shirt and pulling it up off over his head, smiling at his bewildered look. Grabbing one of his wrists, she pulled him forward to lie face down on the bed. She climbed on to him, straddling his hips while leaning down and beginning to massage his tense muscles.

“Oh, baby,” he nearly moaned. “Oh, yeah, that’s the ticket.”

Sydney had to keep from laughing at the thought of Vaughn and Weiss’ reactions since they were only listening in the van outside.

“I thought you might like that,” she said gently as she continued her ministrations.

“Many talents, indeed,” Simon quipped, softly moaning as she worked on a particular spot just below his shoulder blade. Then he chuckled. “Out of all the ways I pictured I’d get you to bed with me, this is by far the best.”

“So you’ve pictured me then?” Sydney asked.

“Since the day we met,” Simon told her, his voice slightly muffled by the comforter.

Okay, time to fish for information. Sydney thought.

“Really? I’m curious, when we first met … what did you think the first time you saw me?” she asked carefully.
Simon was quiet for a moment, shifting his head to get a look at her. She paused her massage as the silence seemed to prolong.

“What?” he asked in a slightly miffed tone. “You mean in Algeria?”

Sydney broke her gaze from his and instead seemed to concentrate on running her hands over his back again. “Yeah.”

Simon chuckled. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Then thinking about it some more, he piped up, “Of course, when I tried to make a pass at you, you told me to go to hell.”

Sydney chuckled also, but bit her lip. He wasn’t coming up with any details that she could use. She was going to have to try some other way.

And Simon gave her one.

“Of course, that was before I’d met Alli,” he told her, seeming to have slipped into memories of the past.

“So...you and Allison…are you sure that’s over?” Sydney asked tentatively.

“Common, Julia, you know it is,” Simon answered. “I wouldn’t giving you the time of day if it weren’t.”

Sydney nodded, suddenly feeling foolish for sounding like a shrink to a wanted criminal. What would Barnett say? Sydney could just hear her voice…And you’re okay with that?

“Well…I just wasn’t sure,” Sydney told the man below her. “I was never really clear on the details.”

“It’s like anything else, really. You know Alli,” he said in a slightly bitter tone. “Always out looking for something better.”

Sydney shrugged, forgetting that he couldn’t really see her. “You never know. She might surprise you.”

Suddenly, Simon flipped over, causing Sydney to yelp a little as he managed to pin her beneath him, resting his forearms on either side of her head. Sydney tried not to squirm as he seemed to be searching for something in her face.

Then he quickly pecked her on the lips, “Thanks for the rub, sweetheart.”

He got up off the bed and hauled up after him, reaching around her for his shirt. He pulled it on, continuing to look her. Then it seemed something caught his eye, because he reached over and pushed her long hair off her shoulder to run his fingers down the long silver necklace hanging from Sydney’s neck. She froze, realizing that it must have slipped out from beneath her shirt earlier as Simon stopped to finger the ring that hung from the chain.

He smirked a bit. “Well, it’s good to see that some things don’t change.”

He dropped the ring from his fingers and tuned away, hearing the rest of the team enter the house and walking out into the dining hall of the house to meet them.

Sydney kept herself from nearly hyperventilating, thanking the powers that be that Simon didn’t say anything about the ring that would make Vaughn or Weiss suspicious. She kicked herself for being so careless as to bring it with her, especially since she was going in undercover. But lately she’d taken to wearing the thing as much as possible. It made her feel…like her old self again. Trying to clam her shaking fingers, she slipped the ring and it’s chain back beneath her top and took a deep breath, following Simon to start the mission.

* * * *

“How did it go?”

Silence and a glare was all that came in response.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes. I came by to thank you for the intel. We should be intercepting Doren soon.”

“I’m glad I could help.”

Sydney glanced around for a second while pressing a button on her watch that would kill the bugs.

“We have two minutes,” Sydney said, trying to keep her anger under control. “Why the hell did you send me to Walker? You know more than you’re telling.”

“About what?” Sark asked casually, “About Walker knowing Allison? Or about Julia Thorne?”

“Sark, if you know something about my two missing years…”

“Simon knows about Julia,” Sark interrupted, his face now serious, “But Allison can tell you more. I’m merely leading you to finding your own answers Sydney.”

His gaze locked with hers. “I know you don’t like being coddled.”

Sydney couldn’t come up with an answer for that, so Sark continued, “I don’t hold anything against you, Sydney, you must know that. But it’s not in my best interests to tell you everything that I know right away …”

“If you say ‘truth takes time’ I’m going to shoot you right now,” Sydney hissed, managing to shake off her earlier silence.

Sark smirked at her in that manner she’d always found infuriating because they both knew that he held the upper hand.

Sydney’s watch beeped, announcing their time for bluntness was over.

“Is that all, Agent Bristow?” Sark asked in a nearly laughing tone.

Sydney simply glared back at him, turning on her heel and walking away.

_________________________________________________________
Another head hangs lowly,
Child is slowly taken.
And the violence caused such silence,
Who are we mistaken?

EIGHT: “Zombie”

“Do we have any more leads on Doren?” Dixon asked, looking around the conference table.

No one could even meet the Director’s gaze as they all thought about the last failed mission. Simon had told Sydney Allison would be in the Cayman Islands, confirming that she was indeed looking track down Sark for his inheritance, since Sark had mentioned that the Cayman Islands is where he’d gotten the money in the first place. She’d been ambushed and captured, but had managed to escape while being transferred back to the States. Now, there was no sign of her, and no one knew where to look.

“Well,” Dixon said, standing up to pace about the room, “Right now, we have no new intel nor any indication of recent activity from the Covenant. So, our priority will be to guess their next move. Pull every resource you have, go back to everything we know about them. if anyone can come up with something that could help us figure out what they’re after, let us know ASAP.”

“That’s it,” he said, walking out of the briefing room, with a very stressed out face the matched everyone else’s in the room.

“Sydney, if you have a minute,” Jack called to his daughter. Once they were in a secure area of the JTF, Jack frowned at his daughter.

“Have you heard?” he asked gravely.

“Heard what?”

“About Sark. He’s being transferred into DSR custody.”

Sydney’s eyes went wide. “What? DSR? Why?”

“I thought you might have known since, you were the last one to see him,” Jack said, his brows furrowing together. He didn’t like the pattern Sydney had developed of going to visit Sark.

Sydney shook her head, frowning, “No, I didn’t know…Why would they want to take him away?”

“Probably because he was involved with your mother and Sloane when they were all in that Rambaldi hunt. And you know DSR. More that likely they want to ask him things about the Rambaldi artifacts. “

Sydney nodded. “Do you think he’ll be back?”

“I don’t’ know,” Jack answered gravely. “You were going to go see him again, weren’t you?”

“Dad, right now, Sark is the only person I can think of that could have a lead on the Covenant,” Sydney argued.

“Sydney, while I know that my arguments against that theory are futile with you, if Sark had any feasible leads to follow, we can longer depend on him to give them to us.”

Sydney let out a frustrated sigh as Jack continued, “Go back to the beginning, back to every piece of intel that we’ve acquired, assume nothing. Then maybe, we’ll be able to find some leads.”

Sydney nodded in agreement.

* * * *

So it was that Sydney was sitting on her bed, paperwork spread out around her, trying to see something she might have missed the first sixty or seventy times she went over everything.

A noise coming from outside her room made her jump.

Carefully, she moved off the bed and tiptoed to her dresser, unearthing her gun. After checking that it was loaded, she very carefully made her way out into the hallway, clearing out her house section by section. She prayed to God it was only Eric, coming in to look for a beer or something. But as she entered the kitchen, she found it empty. The hairs at the back of her neck stood up as she found the same situation in the living room and all the other rooms in the house. The backyard was empty too. Finally, she made her way to the front door, checking for anything unusual. But she found nothing. She closed the front door behind her and locked it, lowering her gun while walking back towards her bedroom.

That’s why she didn’t see the shooter.

That’s why she collapsed on the ground in her home, the effects of the tranq dart pulling her into darkness.

* * * *

“Sydney.”

The voice was coming from far away …she was struggling to move through the murkiness towards it.

“Sydney, wake up.”

Sydney opened her eyes, slowly adjusting to the light around her.

“Glad to see you’re awake,” came the same voice that had spoken to her earlier.

Sydney’s eyes shot open in shock as she stared at the man before her.

“Sorry to have to be doing things this way,” he continued, taking a seat across from her.

“Kendall?” Sydney asked shakily.
______________________________________________________________________

Take me away, take me away
You said that you were gonna stay
But you're always lying anyway
You're gonna suffer if you don't start breathing now
Now that I need you
You're going away...

NINE: “Quicksand”

“Kendall?” Sydney asked shakily. “You’re a part of this?”

“A part of what, exactly?” Kendall asked.

“You’re Covenant,” Sydney said, quickly standing and placing some distance between herself and the older man.

She hadn’t looked where she was going because she felt herself back into a barrier and she nearly stumbled, still rubbing off the effects of the tranq.

“Whoa, easy,” came the voice of the person she’d knocking into and was now holding her steady.

Sydney looked over her shoulder at the person and stepped away, growing more anxious that she was trapped in an airplane with no where to run.

“Sark, what the hell are you doing here?” Sydney asked, glancing between Sark, who was out of his prison uniform and quite unrestrained, and Kendall, who was frowning at her. “You’re both with the Covenant, aren’t you? I can’t believe you’re in this together.”

“Sydney, calm down,’ Kendall said with force in his voice, “I am not with the Covenant and neither is Mr. Sark. I’m Special Research.”

“You’re kidding…” Sydney breathed, having calmed down a bit. She glanced back over at Sark who was giving her an unreadable look. “I thought he was being transferred into DSR custody.”

“He is in DSR custody, he always has been,” Kendall clarified.

“We made an agreement,” Sark told her, “An agreement which, thus far, both sides have lived up to.”

Sydney’s eyes narrowed as her eyes settled on Kendall. “What’s going on? What does any of this have to do with me?”

“Mr. Sark,” Kendall turned to the younger man, “I need speak with Agent Bristow alone, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Sark answered, moving past Sydney and leaving the main cabin, closing the door behind him.

“This has everything to do with you,” Kendall told Sydney as soon as they were alone. “We need to talk about the last two years.”

“Mr. Kendall, as you may be aware, I have no recollection of that time.”

“I know you don’t. But I do.”

Sydney blinked at him, not bothering to hide her shock. “What?” she managed to whisper.

“I know everything, the whole story…or at least, most of it.”

“You know everything?” Sydney parroted. But her anger quickly overcame her shock as she registered his words. “You mean all this time, nearly four months that I’ve been back and killing myself over what happened to me and you’ve known?! Why did never bother to tell me?!”

“Because, you asked me not to,” Kendall responded

Sydney stared back at him for a minute, taking shallow breaths.

“Start at the beginning,” she said in a strong and calm voice she hardly recognized as her own. “And start right now. I’m all out of patience.”

“First of all, Agent Bristow, you’re going to need clearance…” Kendall began.

“I don’t care!” Sydney yelled, slamming her fist down on the small table in front of Kendall. “I have a right to know what happened to my life!”

Kendall stared at her for a moment before waving his hand in the air.

“Fine, have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the spot in front of him.

Sydney sat down across from him, waiting for him to begin to explain.

“You died. Or at least we believed you did. The body we found after the fire in your apartment matched the DNA we had on file. I went to your funeral, watched Vaughn spread your ashes at sea. And things went on. Nine months had passed when I got a phone call. From you. You were in Italy, that you’d just escaped from the Covenant and that you wanted to come in. So, I arranged for us to meet in a safehouse in Rome. When I got there you looked different. It was an alias of yours that I’d never seen before. But I knew it was you, because right off the bat we had a…difference of opinion. You wanted to speak to your father, who at the time was in deep cover, and you were asking me a million questions a minute. Now, as you can imagine, I had questions of my own that needed to be answered, since at the time we knew almost nothing about the Covenant. So, finally, we sat down and you told me the whole story from the beginning, starting from the last thing you remember after you fight with Allison…”

Sydney listened with her heart in her throat as Kendall described how she was taken to her own funeral, rendered helpless and left only to watch. How the man she’d shot and killed had held all the answers for her. How she was tortured and brainwashed for six months into believing she was someone else: a murderer.

Kendall paused in his story to get up for coffee.

Sydney stared after him. “So I was programmed,” she said quietly.

“Yes, but not by the Covenant,” Kendall said.

Sydney titled her head in question.

“As a child you were part of a secret CIA project that programmed children to be spies,” Kendall said.

“Project Christmas,” Sydney supplied, knowing all too well what it was all about.

“Well, that can with a failsafe, so that any of the test subjects could never be turned. Jack hard-wired you to withstand some pretty intense attempts at brainwashing.”

Sydney nodded, staring down at the ground. “Why don’t I remember any of this?”

“I’m getting to that,” Kendall said, sitting down again. “When we finished talking, you wanted to go home, to see Vaughn.”

Sydney visibly tensed.

“But I had told you that too much time had passed, that the home you knew had been erased for you. That you were putting in danger the lives of the people you claimed to love. You thought I was trying to scare you, so you picked up and left. I let you go and you came home. You looked up Vaughn…it had been nine months, but you found him…with someone else. And as hard as it was for you to see them together, you couldn’t confront him. You knew your presence was a danger to him. So, you called me back, telling me that you’d do whatever I said. And that’s how we started working together.”

“So, I became Julia?”

“Yes. Before you were able to get away, the brainwashing had been tested. They had sent you out of a couple of missions with a partner: Allison Doren.”

“What? I was her partner?”

“For three months. Just before you got in contact with me, the Covenant sent you and Allison to Algeria to meet with this man,” Kendall slipped another photograph in Sydney’s direction.

“Simon Walker,” Sydney supplied, staring at a black-and-white airport surveillance picture.

“He was a thief, and Allison stayed on to be his partner. They were assigned to do more research on Rambaldi. After we met, I had you push to take over their operation. While you were out doing work for them, you kept in contact with me, informing me of all of your activity while feeding the Covenant false leads. Before Simon and Allison had handed their operations over to you, Simon had found a man named Adrian Lazarey, a Rambaldi expert. Your assignment was to get information from Lazarey and then kill him.”

Sydney swallowed hard, knowing that it was exactly what she had done. “So I killed him,” she said quietly.

“No, you didn’t,” Kendall told her.

Sydney’s eye went wide. “What? But, I did, I saw the video tape.”

“The night before you were supposed to kill him, you went to see Lazarey, explained to him that he would die unless he did what you told him. So you staged his murder, you assumed there would be video cameras, so you had to make it look real. The paramedics that carried him away were CIA agents under my command. The Russians did an investigation and by all counts, Lazarey was murdered. The truth is you saved his life.”
Sydney let out a shaky breath, feeling a weight being lifted from her shoulders, relief flooding over her.

“After that, you and Lazarey worked together, for nine months. It took some time but you found what you were looking for. Now, you were supposed to bring it back to me for analysis.”

“But I didn’t,” Sydney deduced.

Kendall frowned. “No, instead I got this.” He held up a disc. Sydney furrowed her eyebrows as Kendall stood up to pop the disc into a min DVD player hooked up to a screen she hadn’t noticed before. She stood up to move closer, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You might want to sit down for this,” Kendall said, but Sydney continued to stand as the screen came to life, an empty chair in front of a curtained window coming into view.

Then, Sydney’s eyes went wide as she saw herself sit down and face the screen, looking just like she had in the surveillance video…this was Julia. But this time, she looked distraught and seriously upset.

“Kendall. I know you’re expecting the cube and I’m sorry … you’ve been great. I mean, a real friend to me and I appreciate that. But I can’t go along with the plan anymore. You know what this is about,” she said, swallowing visibly, her voice shaky.

“I can’t give you the cube. It’ll never be safe there, I know, everything gets stolen. So, I have a plan. I found someone who studies how the brain stores long and short term memory. I can’t tell you the specifics, but I’m going to see if I can have my memories erased, so the Covenant never finds out what I did with the cube … I don’t even want to know. I’m going to have the last two years removed, because I just can’t deal with it, I’ve seen to much…” she paused here to stifle a sob and take a controlling breath.

“If this doesn’t work … meaning ... if this kills me…well, better it was me than the Covenant…but if I survive and I come back and I don’t remember anything, do me a favor. Don’t tell me what I’ve been through, please. And also … please, tell Julian … that I’m sorry. That I’m so sorry, but I didn’t know what else I could do … and … please … tell him that despite everything I love him, even if I don’t remember.”

Sydney watched as the woman on the screen became overcome with emotion, still not fully understanding why this was all happening. That version of herself up in the screen got up and turned off the recording, leaving Sydney completely aghast. She didn’t even realize that she’d dropped into a nearby chair.

“Why did you show me this?” she asked Kendall, while she stared straight ahead. She turned her head towards him slowly. “Why would you show me this after I had gone through all the trouble of erasing my memories?”

“I wouldn’t have, and I’ve tried to honor your request as long as possible, but we’ve acquired new intel that made this necessary,” Kendall explained, a real look of concern on his face. “We got to know each other quite a bit, Sydney, and I knew that despite your protests, you would want to know about what really happened.”

“What new intel?” Sydney asked in a whisper.

Kendall sighed. “You and Lazarey found what you were looking for, what we all called ‘the cube’.”

“What is it?”

“Well, we were never really sure. But it belonged to Milo Rambaldi…”

At this Sydney let out a bitter chuckle. “It figures,” she mumbled to herself, while Kendall continued.

“But you don’t know where it is,” Kendall said explained.

“But now you need to find it,” Sydney finished for him. “Why couldn’t you just find Lazarey?”

“We’ve tried that. But he went into hiding soon after your mission. And since no one knows where he could be, our only assumption is that you helped him disappear,” Kendall told her.

“But how can I help?” Sydney asked, suddenly exasperated, tired of having to say the same thing over and over. “You just heard it. I had my memories removed. I don’t know anything! There’s nothing we can do!”

“Well, not exactly,” Kendall said, “I’ve done some research about the possible procedure that you might have used. The one that is most likely that you used doesn’t really fully remove your memories, but just … well, what it does is that it sort of puts them away in a place in your mind that can’t be accessed but by a trigger.”

“A trigger? What kind of trigger?” Sydney asked.

“Well, I’m not sure. It’s something that has to be determined by the patient before the procedure is performed,” Kendall explained.

Sydney’s hopeful look disappeared. “Great,” she said, “Meaning we’ll never know.”

Sydney ran her hands through her hair, “There’s got to be something else, another step, someone else involved,” she mused, dropping her hands to her neck.

Her fingers brushed over the necklace she had on. Her breath caught in her chest as something else came to her attention.

“Sark. You never told me why was here,” she asked in a shaky voice.

“He thinks he knows where what we need to do to get your memories back,” Kendall said simply.

“Julian … I said something about a Julian,” Sydney looked back at Kendall, fingering the ring on the end of the silver chain. “Is Sark Julian?”

Kendall seemed like he was hesitant about telling her, looking a little surprised that she might not have already known.

But his silence was a confirmation of it. She nodded, taking a deep breath to try to control herself a bit more.

“The cube,” she spoke again. “Do we know why the Covenant wants it so badly?”

“Yes,” Kendall answered. “But you’re not going to like this…”

* * * *

It was hours later, the plane was still in flight, and Sydney was still in a daze, staring blankly into space, her body curled into a small little ball, tears streaks staining her cheeks being the only visible proof her earlier breakdown.

Kendall had left her to herself a while ago, and she had hardly noticed.

It wasn’t until Sark came to sit beside her that she came out of her daze, looking down for a moment not sure what to do or what to say.

“Is there anything that you want to know,” he broke the silence by speaking quietly, still not really looking at her.
Sydney turned to look at his with mixed emotions, wanting to tell him that she had a million questions, but she couldn’t seem to voice any of them at the moment…

Except for one.

“Does this mean anything to you?” she asked in a raspy voice, pulling the necklace off and holding it in front of him, the white gold ring dangling a bit.

Sark furrowed his eyebrows slightly as he looked at the ring, slowly reaching for it and holding it in his had. He stared at it for what seemed like forever as Sydney waited for his answer. He handed it back to her silently, not looking at her directly.

“It used to mean something to both of us,” he told her quietly. “But hopefully, you’ll remember it soon.”

Sydney nodded, slipping the necklace on again, feeling its familiar weight again.

“About the past…” she began, feeling herself speak without even knowing it, “I know that you and I were together at some point. Kendall explained that you had pulled me out of the Covenant facility thinking that I was Julia. That you helped me get away from them.”

Sark nodded.

“How did you do that?” Sydney asked.

“We needed to get out of the country quickly. The only way we could manage it without getting caught was going to a former contact of mine. We had to pretend to be married.”

“Oh,” was all Sydney said in response.

“And then you knocked me out, handcuffed me to a chair and called the cavalry,” Sark continued in a lighter tone.
Sydney smiled a little bit in spite of herself, “Yeah, Kendall told me about that too. But it you were out of custody … what happened? Why were you put in jail again?”

Sark finally looked directly at her, his blue eyes carrying a look different from anything she’d ever seen before.

“One day, about eight months ago, you asked me if I would do anything you asked of me without question,” Sark told her, looking into her eyes.

Sydney felt herself holding her breath.

“I swore to you that I would, without ever knowing to what I had just given an oath to do,” he continued, “You told me to turn myself in to the CIA, to work out a deal with Director Kendall. Of course, I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but you promised me that I wouldn’t be left there for too long. In fact, I learned from Kendall that you had basically come up with the agreement that was ultimately put into action: I wouldn’t be put to death in return for my cooperation. You also had engineered it so that I was truly under the Special Investigations custody and not the CIA’s, which would then allow me a sort of conditional freedom. I was there for four months when I learned that you’d suddenly turned up alive in Hong Kong, with no memory of the past two years.”

Sark lowered his eyes to the ground and let out a sigh, the only sign of his tormented emotions. “It was unexpected to say the least. The last time I saw you, you said you needed to do something, something that I couldn’t be a part of. And you needed to know that I was not only safe but out of the reach of the Covenant. It was the only time I’d ever heard speak in such a way… later, sitting in that cell, going over our conversation … it lead me to think that you knew you knew you were going to die. And after four months of not hearing from you at all, I didn’t know what to think. That was when Kendall showed me that video.”

Sydney felt like reaching out to him, to do something to make him stop looking at her with so much hurt behind his eyes. It was not the Sark she was used to and it was scaring her.

“I can’t imagine what you must have felt seeing it,” he went on, “But I….well, I was angry. I couldn’t believe that you would willingly want to forget about everything that we…about everything. And then … talking with you again, as if nothing had changed, as if nothing had happened …. believe me when I tell you it’s one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to do.”

He looked up at her again, his eyes showing his inner turmoil. “If this thing that we’re going to go do right now doesn’t work…I’m willing to start again, from the beginning. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

“To win you back” were the pivotal words that he’d left unsaid.

But Sydney felt them none the less.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, knowing that if she raised her voice any louder she’d lose control and burst into tears. “I just don’t remember…I wish that I did but…I’m just so sorry.”

Sark let out a short breath, giving her a mirthless smile. “Try to get some rest, Sydney. We’ll land in a couple of hours. “

Sydney nodded, trying to control herself once again. “Where are we going?”

“London,” he answered. “We’re going to see an old friend.”

________________________________________________________________

The world could end we wouldn’t hear it
I know just what’s on your mind
I see the way your face has changed

TEN: “London”

Sark and Sydney rode silently up the elevator of the hotel where they were supposed to meet their contact. The city of London was coming upon dusk, giving everything a glow.

Kendall was going to wait for them to find the contact they needed, to see if they really could recover Sydney’s memories.

Sark had rented a car at the airport and he and Sydney rode in the same silence they’d fallen into since their conversation on the plane. Sydney had simply asked him who exactly it was that they were going to go see.

“Her name is Nicolaya Courselli,” Sark had answered, never taking his eyes off the road. “She was a friend of yours.”

“Did you know her well?” Sydney asked.

“Yes, I knew her long before you did. I think she could be of some help,” Sark said, and that was the length of their conversation.

The elevator doors opened on the eighteenth floor and Sydney stepped out after Sark, following him to the only door on the whole floor. He knocked twice, and they both waited, each with a sense of dread that they could never show to their companion.

Sydney held her breath as she saw the doorknob turn and the door open.

A small woman opened the door.

“Signore,” she said, “Il madame vi ha lasciato questo per, signore.*”

“Grazie,” Sark answered, taking the sealed envelope being handed to him. He turned away from the door as the lady shut it, reading over the short note quickly then walking in the direction of the elevators again.

“What’s going on?” Sydney asked, walking along with him into the elevator.

As the doors closed he wordlessly handed the note for her see for herself.

Hotel Miniazza, Suite 352, Rome.

* * * *

Sydney and Sark stood waiting in the main living area of the suite on Rome.

“Julian! Sydney! I miei tesori*,” came her rich voice as she breezed into the room.

Tall and elegant, Sydney observed the beauty that had walked in. She had long dark hair that floated around her, dark eyes that sparkled and the figure of a model, everything about her telling of grace and beauty.

She greeted Sark first, taking him in her arms and kissing both his cheeks in a way that made Sydney’s breath hitch just slightly. She began to wonder just how good of friends they really were…

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Sydney heard her say to him softly in Italian. Then she laughed, running her hand over his shorn hair.

“Stop it, Nicky, it wasn’t a choice,” he muttered at her in the same language, but he was trying to hide a smile.

“Don’t worry, hair grows back,” she said, releasing him and turning to Sydney.

She looked young, more around Sark’s age than her own, Sydney guessed. She took Sydney by the shoulders and pulled her into a warmer embrace than Sydney had ever received from a stranger.

“Sydney,” she said in a heavily accented English, “I know you don’t remember me. My name is Nicolaya Cournelli. I’m your cousin.”

Sydney’s eye went wide.

“Well,” Nicolaya shrugged, “More like a half-cousin. Irina Derevko is my mother’s sister.”

Sydney tried to wrap her head around this latest bit of information. “O didn’t know my mother had a sister.”

“Sisters,” Nicolaya corrected her. “Two of them, and a younger brother, actually, which I doubt even Jack knows about. But there will be time for that later.”

She turned to look at Sark with a completely grave expression. “I didn’t meet you in London like we had said because I got news from Roberto about your father,” she said. “He’s been captured by the Covenant. They found him somewhere in Finland. We still don’t know how, but we know that he is being moved to another location tonight.”

“Where?” Sark asked.

“We don’t know,” Nicolaya answered. “I thin you should go talk with Roberto.”

Sark seemed to be considering his options. Finally, he shook his head. “No, that can wait, right now, there’s something more important.”

Nicolaya’s jaw dropped for a moment before her demeanor changed.

“Sydney, make yourself comfortable, won’t you?” Nicolaya smiled at Sydney sweetly as she walked into another room, having Sark follow her.

They thought they had shut the door completely behind them, but Sydney noticed that it was not completely shut, and her curiosity got the better of her. She scooted close to the door, leaning in to eavesdrop in the conversation.

But she quickly noticed that there had been no need to get so close. They were both speaking so loudly in Italian that anyone could have heard them within the suite.

“Do you know what it meant not only for me but for Roberto to get this information for you?,” Nicolaya was asking him angrily. “The kind of risks we’re taking. If Papa ever found out, he would have the both of us, and probably you, killed. You know that. And you need to find him before the Covenant gets what they want from him.”

“It won’t matter if Sydney gets her memory back,” Sark argued in return. “And I’m not letting her do this alone.”

“You don’t get it, do you? You’re thinking of yourself first, praying that this will work because that would mean that she remembers you. God, this is so typical of you!” Nicolaya said, sounding more angry than before. “You don’t know why she did this to herself in the first place. Or what it would mean to get her memories back. I still can’t believe I even agreed to any of this. She made me swear to her that I wouldn’t.”

Sark didn’t come back with a reply Sydney could hear or see, so she waited for Nicolaya to say something more.

“I am going to help her, because she is here now,” she said in a calmer tone, “But this is something that you can’t be here for. I won’t allow it. and please, go to Roberto and try to see if you can save your father.”

“Don’t call him that,” Sark said calmly. “You know better than anyone that man was no father to me.”

“Regardless. He knows something that only he and Sydney knew, and as much as that bothers you, whatever they both knew the Covenant is desperate to find it out too. Sydney went out of her way to protect him, and that should be reason enough for you.”

Sark sighed deeply, “Alright, I’ll go, but as soon as you’re done here, no matter what happens, let me know.”

“Of course.”

Sydney heard Sark sigh, knowing that he’d lost the argument. Sydney wondered at the relationship between these two, since Sydney had never known Sark to give up a fight so easily.

She heard them coming back in her direction so she hurried back over to the couch and sat down just as Sark swung the door to the room open.

Sydney glanced over at him as he paused to look at her with a curious expression, as if he knew very well that she heard every word that he and Nicolaya had spoken. By the look on Nicolaya’s face, she knew it too.

Regardless of this, Sark walked over to Sydney, sitting next to her on the couch.

“Sydney, Nicky says that I can’t stay for what you have to do. But I’ll stay if you want me to,” he told her gently. “Nicky tends to have a short fuse, if you know what I mean.”

Sydney looked over at Nicolaya, who had moved over to the small kitchen and was shuffling around with wine glasses.

“Don’t worry about me, Sark,” she said, seeing a flicker of an emotion at the sound of what she still called him. But she it was too soon for her to bring herself to call him anything else. “I’ll be fine,” Sydney told him with a reassuring smile.

He took her hand, and lifted it to his lips, planting a soft kiss on her skin, surprising her with his gentleness.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized half-heartedly.

Sydney just shook her head. “No, don’t be. Really…”

He nodded simply and stood up, nodding a goodbye to Nicolaya and walking out the door.

Sydney found herself staring after him, feeling for the first time the reality of this all, the full weight of it bearing down on her with full force.

“Would you like a drink, carina?” Nicolaya’s voice brought Sydney’s attention over to her. She lifted a glass of wine for Sydney to see.

“Yes, thank you,” Sydney answered as Nicolaya sashayed over to her, handing Sydney the glass of the red liquid while holding a glass of her own. Then she sat down next to Sydney.

“Sydney, we’ve always been honest with each other,” Nicolaya began, “And that’s the reason why I’m going to say what I’m going to say.”

Sydney didn’t think that this type of beginning was an indicator of something good, but she nodded for the other woman to continue.

“You and I met through Julian, almost two years ago, now and I like to think that we became fast friends. And that is really saying something, considering how hard it is for any of us to trust someone. You’d been working undercover for the Covenant and it wasn’t easy work. I know you must have seen many upsetting things. But I always felt that you had a handle on them. Then, about four months ago, you came to me, more upset than I’d ever seen you. Julian was in US custody and the Covenant would soon be coming after you so you needed my help. There was a procedure that you were going to take, one that, needless to say, I certainly didn’t approve of and I’m sure that Julian wouldn’t have either, had he known. But you said that it could be reversed, and you told me how to do it. You also made me swear that I would never mention it unless you asked me to. Which is why I’m a little more than surprised that you are here.”

Nicolaya learned forward and locked eyes with Sydney. “I’m only sitting here with you now because Julian begged me to. It’s important to him and he means a lot to me. But you do too. And I know why you wanted to go through with the procedure in the first place. If we reverse this, it’s not selective. You’ll get everything, the good and the bad. You made the decision to get rid of all of it four months ago. Do you really want to reverse it now?”

Sydney swallowed hard, having just heard voiced that same question she’d been asking herself ever since she found out about all this.

“It’s important that I do this,” she said finally. “I want to know, I want to remember.”

She thought about the hurt she’d seen in Sark’s eyes earlier.

“I need to remember,” Sydney told Nicolaya in a firm voice she was surprised was her own.

The other woman seemed to be scrutinizing her for a moment. Finally, she sighed.

“Is that really what you’ve decided?” she asked Sydney quietly.

“Yes,” Sydney answered.

Nicolaya nodded slowly, taking another sip of her wine. “Very well.”

She stood up from the couch, “Attesa qui,*” she said, walking into the next room for a moment.

Sydney gulped down the last of her wine, hoping it would calm her increasingly upset nerves.

Nicolaya came back into the room with a large wooden box in her hands, placing it on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Sydney stared at the carved wooden box, beautiful in design, probably an antique.

“Inside is what you need to remember the past, Sydney,” Nicolaya said quietly. “There are items here, chosen by you that will trigger a set of memories and all of them together will completely unlock the rest of them in your memory.”

Sydney nodded. “Okay … I’m ready.”

TBC…

*“Il madame vi ha lasciato questo per, signore.” Madame left this for you, sir.
*“I miei tesori” my darlings
* ” Attesa qui” Wait here.

the story continues!