A Series of Stories

Title: A Series of Stories
Rating: PG
Summary: A father’s life is recalled by his daughter through a series of stories told to her by her mother. S/Sa
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don’t own anything except for Lily... thank you, J.J. Abrams.
Timeline: Post-Counteragent S2.





Sydney could hear yelling coming faintly from the upstairs bedroom of her house. Normally, she would just let it go on for a little bit without answering in an effort to get Lily to tire herself out a little. It was usually only a fear of monsters in the closet or dragons under the bed. But this time the cries seemed almost frantic. Which worried her. This might not be monsters.

Jumping up, she made her way up the stairs and to the first room on the right, trying all the way not to slip into spy mode. Just because Lily was crying doesn’t mean that some evil spy had broken into her home and tried to steal her child. Granted, it had happened a few times before, but that didn’t mean it was what was going on today.

“Hey, baby,” Sydney said, once she saw that indeed there was no ominous figure standing by the bed or hovering in the shadows. “What’s wrong?”

“I had another bad dream, Mommy,” the little seven-year-old girl said from her place in bed. Sydney smiled at her daughter who was the spitting image of herself. The little girl had long, silky brown hair pulled back in a French braid, and her eyes were a piercing blue just like her father’s. She was wearing rubber ducky pajamas that her Uncle Will had bought her for her birthday a few weeks ago. Every time Sydney looked at her, she couldn’t believe how something so perfect had come out of her war-torn life. It was a miracle.

Breaking her momentary trance, Sydney smiled and walked over to the bed, taking a seat on the edge. “Was it about the mean kids at school again?”

“Yeah,” Lily admitted as she lay back down in the bed.

“What do you need me to do, sweetheart?”

“Tell me one of your fun stories.”

“About what? Daring car chases? Massive explosions? Double identities?”

“No!” Lily yelled. “I don’t want to hear your made-up stories. I want to hear something that’s real.”

“Who’s to say that I made up those stories?”

Lily gave her one of her skeptical looks that said she was tired of hearing people try to lie to her. “Mommy, be serious. Tell me the story about how you met Daddy.”

Sydney nodded and leaned back against the wall to make herself a little more comfortable. This was her daughter’s favorite story, and it always took quite a bit out of her, drudging up old memories. “Well, you know that your father and I worked at the same bank.”

“Yeah. That funny French word.”

“Credit Dauphine, Lily. And French is not a funny language. It’s very romantic. You’ll learn that someday.”

“Daddy could speak French, couldn’t he?”

“Like no one else.” Sydney smiled at her daughter. “Now where was I?”

“You were just starting.”

“Oh right. Your father and I knew each other long before the day our story takes place. In fact, we had just been made partners. But let’s just say that Mommy wasn’t too fond of him at the time.”

“Why didn’t you like Daddy?”

“Well, he didn’t appear to be the nicest man, and he liked to ruffle Mommy’s feathers. But I didn’t know him that well then. Now I know that he is indeed a very nice man.” Sydney paused for a second. “Anyway, your daddy and I were riding in an elevator down to one of the bank’s sub-basements…”

Sydney scowled at Sark as he put his hand in front of the elevator doors to keep them from closing. “Are you trying to make me late, Agent Bristow?”

“Yes,” she hissed back. “And it doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Colleagues usually hold the elevator for one another, no matter how much bad blood is between them. It’s common courtesy.”

“I don’t feel the need to be courteous to a man like you.”

Sark took his place leaning against the back wall of the elevator and gave her a complete look up and down. “Your subtle plan to get me fired really isn’t that subtle today. I would expect more of you.” He stopped talking until she made eye contact with him. “You know, Sydney, I like you in blue. It makes your smile seem brighter.”

“Listen, Sark. Sloane might be making us partner up for missions, but that doesn’t mean that I have to start enjoying your company and listen to your slimy come-ons. So, if we could just get through this elevator ride without talking, I would be ever grateful.”

To her surprise, he nodded and pulled out his cell phone to make a call.


“Your daddy really wanted to get some alone time with me,” Sydney explained. “You see, I didn’t know it at the time, but Julian had a crush on me.”

“Crushes are fun,” Lily said with a smile.

“You’re too young to be saying that,” she deadpanned, shaking her head. “Anyway, he caught me going into the elevator and seized the moment to have a conversation with me. There really wasn’t a lot of time during our jobs together for us to talk about more than our assignments.”

“But Daddy wanted to get to know you.”

“Right. Your father wanted to get to know who I was outside of the bank. I didn’t really want to hear a word he was saying because of the whole massive hate thing. Since his goal wasn’t to make me mad, he didn’t say a word when I asked him to be quiet. He just picked up his phone and made a call.”

“Did you say please when you told him not to talk?”

“Of course. Believe or not, your Daddy told me later that he was just pretending to make a phone call. He just wanted to have a little time to watch me without me realizing that was his plan.”

“Daddy was a smart guy, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, he was, honey. We were just standing in the elevator, me staring at the closed doors and your father on his phone. And then everything in the world seemed to go wrong…”

The elevator lurched to a stop in between the third and fourth sub-basements. Sydney looked around in confusion but then immediately turned her attention to glaring at Sark. “What the hell did you do?”

“Why do you assume that I had something to do with what is obviously just a mechanical malfunction?”

“Because you always have some hand in everything that goes wrong in my life.” Turning away from glaring at him, she started banging on the door and screaming for help.

After a few minutes, he interrupted her screaming. “That’s not going to work, and you are just going to tire yourself out. SD-6 has encased this elevator in a special type of metal that traps sound and vibration, so what you‘re doing is useless. It was a safety precaution. Didn‘t you read the manual on the facility when you first started working here?”

“Yes,” she hissed. “But that was years ago. And right now we’re going to suffocate to death because of that nice, little safety precaution. No one knows we‘re stuck in here.”

Sark stood up from where he was leaning and walked over to Sydney. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “You should calm down. They’ll realize we’re in here soon.”

“Get your hands off me, you pig,” she growled almost on instinct.


“Your father was there to comfort me, which I’m grateful for looking back on it. At the time I was a little mean to him. I guess I was in a little bit of a panic. It was an extremely scary place to be. A tiny space hanging in between floors and no one around to know that we were in trouble. It still makes me claustrophobic.”

“What’s claw-so-phone-nick?”

Sydney smiled at her daughter‘s pronunciation. “Claustrophobic, Lily. It means I’m a little uneasy about small, closed in spaces. And that elevator was exactly that. It also didn’t help that we sat in that elevator for a good hour before anyone got in contact with us.”

“What did you do for an hour?”

“Nothing. I was in a pretty bad mood so I asked Daddy nicely not to talk to me again…”

“If you think for one minute I’m going to sit here and banter with you to amuse ourselves, you have another thing coming. So, unless you want to find out just how much pain I can inflict in such a small space, don‘t say a word.”

“One of the security guards realized the error in the elevator mechanics and called us on the emergency phone. He told us that help was on the way and we would be out shortly…”

Sydney jumped as a voice echoed through the elevator. “Identify yourself,” it boomed.

Sark took initiative and walked over to the elevator panel. “Agents Bluebird and Enigma. ID and class 30408-12696 and 52981-10096, respectively.”

They sat in silence as the man on the intercom verified the information he had just been given.

“How did you know my SD-6 ID?” Sydney asked absentmindedly. “Did you memorize it?”

“I was taught to know my opponents better than I know myself. That includes you, Sydney. But trust me, I would rather you be my ally than my opponent any day.”

She was about to answer when the man came back on the intercom. “Identities verified. We’ll try to get the elevator up and running as soon as possible. Do not, I repeat, do not try to find your way out of the elevator yourself. There may be safety mechanisms preventing you from doing so, and we don‘t want two of the company‘s most prestigious employees being hurt on a fluke mechanical glitch.” The voice clicked off as abruptly as it started.

“So I’m stuck here with you for god knows how long?” Sydney muttered. “Great. Can my day get any better?” She let her body slid down the wall of the elevator until she was sitting on the floor.

“Come on, Sydney,” Sark said as he sat down next to her, close enough that their shoulders were touching. “This is the perfect opportunity for me to really understand you.”

She glowered at him but didn’t tell him to move.


“Your father and I talked for the next hour we were stuck in the elevator after the security guard called us again to say help might take a while. Looking back, I think that was the first really good conversation I’d had in a long time. You remember how Mommy told you that her life was a little more crazy back then.”

“I don’t believe it,” Lily said.

“I know you don’t. Anyway, it eventually got too hot in the elevator to even speak. We were in a really small space, and the air system had shut down when the elevator stopped. Have you ever been that hot, sweetie?” Sydney snuggled in closer to her daughter.

“One time I thought I was going to cook myself alive when I was over at Jacob O‘Reyers’ house. But I just jumped in the backyard pool, and it was all okay.”

“Well imagine that but double it. I’ve never been in such a hot place.”

“And you’ve been to really hot places like Miami and Dallas.”

Sydney laughed to herself. If her daughter only knew all the tropical places she had been in her work with SD-6 and the CIA.

“They should put pools in elevators.”

“Yeah, they should. I’ll suggest that to the person in charge of elevators.” She smiled at her daughter’s innocent mind. “So, I was roasting alive, and then your father did the strangest thing…”

“What the hell are you doing?” Sydney demanded as Sark stood up.

Sark paid no attention to her as he slipped off his suit jacket and began to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. “If you haven’t noticed, Sydney, it’s about a hundred degrees in this elevator. And I am in an Armani suit. Those two things don’t go together.”

“Afraid you’ll get sweat stains?” she joked.

“Exactly. See, no matter what you insist, you do understand me, Bristow.”

Sydney stood up and took off her jacket, also, while silently thanking herself for picking the skirt to wear instead of the pants. A skirt was a much better piece of clothing to be wearing when one is stuck with the person they hate most in the world in the hottest and smallest elevator ever made. That was something she had learned already from this experience.


“Daddy and you took off your clothes?” Lily said surprised.

“Not all of our clothes. Just our jackets, honey.” Switching to full-on Mom mode, she added, “It’s not appropriate to take off all your clothes even when you’re locked up tight in an elevator.”

“Just checking. So what happened next?”

Sydney smiled to herself at the memory of what happened next. “Well, then your father said the sweetest thing to me…”

“You know, I think that if you and I were fighting for the same thing, we’d make a good team. We would probably be unstoppable.” Sark sat back down next to Sydney.

She glared at him. “And I bet we’d be lovers, too, right?”

“If that’s what you want, all right. It can be arranged.”

“You are such a…”

“Impeccable dresser? Mysterious man? No! I got it. Cocky bastard! That was the one you were looking for!” Sark smirked at her. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of being called that. My mother might object if she were still alive, but I enjoy it.”

Sydney couldn’t help it. She let out a huge laugh. Sark had never been this relaxed around her before. He always seemed so stuffy and… well… British. But it must have been something in the air. The heat, maybe. He seemed almost… normal.

“I’m beginning to think you don’t hate me as much as you want everyone to think. We’ve been in this elevator for a few hours now, and you haven’t tried to kill me. Not once.” Sark turned his head to the left and smiled at her. “Maybe you even like me.”

She turned her head to the right to face him. “Don’t push me. We’re still stuck in here. There’s plenty of time for me to get mad and try to kill you. And you haven‘t factored in the possibility that I‘ve been spending my time wisely creating a plan to kill you so that it looks like an accident.”


“Your father was just full of surprises that day. He told me that he had been watching me, and that he thought I was a very smart, beautiful woman.”

“Was Daddy romantic, Mom?”

“Very much so. But I wouldn’t find that out until much later.”

“But he called you beautiful. All guys who call you beautiful are trying to be romantic.”

Sydney smiled at her naïve, little daughter. “Your father told me some things about myself that I thought no one else would know…”

“So, Sydney,” Sark said with a smirk, “how’s that whole double agent thing working out for you?”

“What are you talking about?” she replied, trying her best to play dumb.

“Don’t pretend that you don’t know. You’ve been working for the CIA for over a year now. It’s as plain as day to anyone who’s willing to look. You’re not that stealthy when you pull your double switches or give the wrong intel. A person as well-trained as me could spot it within seconds.”

Sydney just stared at him. “I wouldn‘t call you well-trained, just paranoid. And I’m not admitting or denying anything.”

“Smart. But that kind of puts an end to our conversation so I think you might have to. I mean, what else do you have to do right now besides tell me all your deep, dark secrets? I promise I‘m very good at keeping secrets.” Sark smiled at her in his normal, devilish way. Then he moved over so that he was sitting in front of her. “Why don’t you tell me about your handler? My intel says that you’re extremely fond of this Michael Vaughn.”

“Leave Vaughn out of this,” she growled before she realized what she had just admitted to.

“See? I knew you couldn’t keep a secret. And obviously, you do care about the man to make such an impulsive statement.”

“Michael Vaughn means a lot to me, Sark,” she said very slowly and intently. “If you do a thing to him at any point in our time working together, you’ll learn the true meaning of pain. And that is a promise.”

“I think that’s the fourth threat you’ve made to my life in the past ten minutes. We’re making progress.” Sark smirked. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Sydney. Honestly. I just want to know more about you. You intrigue me.”


“I noticed that he was acting a little strange. Usually, your father and I just had arguments. We never really talked nicely with one another. In the hectic life of banking, there’s not really any time to get to know your co-workers or to try to make friends. But he was being nice to me. So I called him on it…”

“Why the hell are you being so civil towards me?” she demanded.

“Because, as hard as it is to believe, I like you, Sydney. I find you to be intelligent and beautiful in a naturally sexy way. Any warm-blooded man would realize that within two seconds of meeting you. And I find I enjoy being in your company. Even when you‘re threatening to kill me.”

She didn’t know what to say as a response. She had not seen this one coming. The only thing she could manage to come up with was “SD-6 doesn’t condone relationships between partners in its organization.” And she knew that it was going to be taken completely wrong and out of context.

Sark laughed. “So, you are interested in me?”

“No. I was just saying.”

“Uh huh.” He smirked at her.


“Then what happened, Mommy?”

“Then the elevator started moving again, and the conversation was dropped…” she said quickly.

“There’s no security cameras in this elevator,” he said after a minute of tense silence.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You said that SD-6 doesn’t condone relations between its agents. While we’re in this elevator, they won’t know a thing. It‘s like a safe zone. No spies besides you and me.”

“I am not going to have sex with you in an elevator!” she yelled, completely appalled.

“I never said anything about sex, Sydney. That was your dirty mind making inferences.”

“As if that wasn’t your implied meaning.” She stood up and started pacing back and forth. “I don’t know what to make of you half the time. First, you’re a complete bastard who could care less about anything. Which is how you’re supposed to act, by the way. That’s who you are.”

“Oh? Do you know for a fact that’s who I am?”

She ignored him. “And then the very next second, you’re being romantic and funny and… well… normal. You’re like the kind of guy I would find attractive outside of this atmosphere. But then you morph right back to the jerk who asks girls to sleep with him in elevators.” Frustrated, she turned and stared at her reflection on the shiny elevator wall.

Sydney was too busy ranting to notice that Sark had stood up and was slowly walking over to the corner where she was pacing. “I did not ask you to sleep with me.”

“Whatever. All I’m saying is I have never, ever met a man who frustrates me more than you.” She turned around to start pacing again and gasped. The man in question was standing inches away from her and slowly closing that distance.

He stared her straight in the eyes so intently she felt herself begin to blush. Before she could move away from him, he had his arms up against the elevator walls, pinning her. He saw her eyes widen in horror as he leaned his head close to hers and whispered in her ear.

“I know that I shouldn’t be doing this, Sydney. That all it’s going to cause me is further pain and embarrassment. A girl like you would never let herself end up with a guy like me. To be honest, I‘m pretty sure that a guy like me shouldn‘t be with a girl like you.” He pulled back and looked her in the eyes again. “But I’m dying to find out what would happen if we forgot about that and just tried.”

“What are you doing?” she whispered, confused and yet perfectly aware of what was happening.

“Kissing you,” he whispered back before gently touching his lips to hers.

Sydney knew that she should probably have kneed him in the groin. That was the sensible and logical thing to do in this situation. Which is why she was so surprised when she felt her hands go up around his back and pull him closer to her. She cursed herself silently for given in to him but was delighted to hear him groan as her lips ground into his.

Later she would blame it on the words he had said to her, but for that moment, she was willing to admit that he might be right.

Sark could feel one of Sydney’s hands work its way up to his chest and slowly begin to unbutton his shirt. He had never thought that they would be doing this when he decided to hop in the same elevator as her and annoy her a little. He ran his hands up along the sides of her arm and was thrilled to feel her shiver under his touch. This is how he had always imagined kissing Sydney Bristow would be. Absolutely perfect.

Which is the only reason he managed to pull himself away from here.

“What?” she asked, trying to pull him back into the kiss.

“We need to stop, Sydney.” He could see the anger flare up in her eyes, and he put one finger to her lips to quiet her before she started yelling. “Listen to me. You know that I want this, whatever this is. That’s obvious. However, I don’t want this to turn out to be just a fun three-hour round of sex in a broken elevator.”

“Three hours?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged. “You’re going to have to wait to find out about that one. What I’m trying to say, Sydney, is I’m interested in you. More so than any other woman I’ve ever met. I don’t want this to be a little fling between us in an elevator.”

“Maybe all I want is a little fling in an elevator,” she said defiantly.

“Sydney, we both know that’s not true.”

“Oh, stop being so full of yourself!”

He looked at her intently. “It’s time you stopped being afraid of your emotions and just started saying what you feel. It’s time that you admit that there’s something between us.”


“We were in the middle of a very important conversation. Your father was trying to get me to admit to something really important when there was a big shift as the elevator started running again. I almost fell down from the jolt. You know what a big klutz I am, honey.”

“Yeah, you’re always bruised from banging into desks and doorways at your job.”

“That’s right. This time, though, I didn’t get hurt because your daddy caught me before I hit the floor…”

Sydney was about to admit that Sark might have a point, there was something between them that she could identify quite yet, when the elevator shifted. She saw Sark get thrown back against the wall two seconds before she felt herself being flung in the same direction right on top of him. As the elevator shifted into its normal up and down motion, he whispered in her ear, “In my arms again, Bristow. It must be fate.”

Sydney didn’t say a word to him as she backed out of his arms to her previous position in front of the elevator doors, waiting for them to open. As they opened and she stepped out, she took one last look at the man who had suddenly changed in her eyes.


“He said to me that it must have been fate that I keep ending up in his arms.” She saw Lily jumping up and down on the bed in anticipation of the last part of the story. “And do you remember what I said to him?”

“You said ‘Maybe it is’ and then you kissed Daddy.”

“That’s right, sweetheart. That was the first time I realized that I might actually be falling in love with your father.” Sydney patted her daughter on the head and stood up. “Now, it’s time for you to go back to sleep. Sweet dreams, pumpkin!”

“Good night, Mommy. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Sydney watched her daughter burrow down into the covers. When she was content that Lily was no longer scared and she could hear the sound of her steady breathing, she flipped off the overhead light and closed the door softly.

The second she was out of the room, she pushed herself back against the wall of the hallway and put her face in her hands, finally allowing herself to cry. The words she had said to Sark that day echoed through her mind.

“Maybe it is.”
 
:woot: OMG!!! FABULOUS!!! Can I possibly get a PM for this, when you update, which i hope will be soon? Anyway, great job! :cool: I hope Sark is in the next chappie! And..... UPDATE SOON!!!!UPDATE SOON!!!!UPDATE SOON!!!!UPDATE SOON!!!!UPDATE SOON!!!!UPDATE SOON!!!!UPDATE SOON!!!!UPDATE SOON!!!!
 
Lily and her mother were walking home from school the next afternoon, hand in hand, as was their normal routine. Sydney had always felt uneasy letting her daughter leave school without someone watching over her. It had been years since someone had attempted a kidnapping of a loved one. The paranoia was a bad habit she couldn’t seem to break. After recounting the events that occurred throughout the school day, Lily got abnormally quiet.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Sydney asked, looking concerned. Her daughter didn’t have the easiest time at school and she knew it. “Did you have another run-in with Fiona at school today?”

Lily shook her head. It hadn’t been the school bully this time. “I was sitting in class today thinking about Daddy.”

She was only thrown off a second by her daughter‘s words. “You miss him, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

She put her hands around her daughter‘s shoulder to give her a walking hug. “I miss him, too, Lily. We’re going to see him today, though, just like I promised. So you’ll get to let him know just how much you miss him. It will help a lot, I think.”

Lily brightened up a little and smiled at her mother. “Will you tell me a story while we’re walking to see Daddy?”

Sydney eyed her daughter suspiciously. “I bet you’ve been waiting all day to ask me that one, scheming and plotting how to guilt trip me into it. Don’t you get tired of hearing the same stories over and over again?”

“No,” her daughter answered resolutely. “But I came up with a story in school today that I don’t think you ever told me. I want to hear about your first date with Daddy.”

Sydney smiled and ushered her daughter over to a bench in the park they were walking through. “You’re right. I don’t think I ever told you about how your father managed to first get me to go on a date with him. He tricked me, you know...”

Sark walked down the Champs-Elysee with Sydney, not completely oblivious that everyone was staring at the pair of them. “I think we’re drawing attention to ourselves,” he whispered in his ear. He slipped his hand into hers.

“I think if you want to still be a man tomorrow, you’re going to take your hand out of mine,” she hissed back.

“No,” he said with a defiant smile, gripping her hand as tight as he could without hurting her. “I don‘t think so, Sydney.”

She rolled her eyes. “The object of the mission is to draw some attention to us. Sloane is running that covert operation in one of the other SD cells territories here in Paris. He wants them to see that his two best agents are otherwise busy so they won’t figure out what he’s up to. So that means you and I need to draw as much attention to us as possible. It doesn‘t mean we have to convince people that we‘re romantically involved.”

Her heart dropped out as she looked over at him and saw a wicked grin begin to form on his face.


“Daddy and I had the most extraordinary first date. It was like we didn’t have a care who saw us or if what we were doing was strange. He took me to one of the most romantic places I could imagine.”

“Los Angeles?” Lily said with wide eyes. That was the most magical place she could think of.

Sydney did her best not to laugh. “That’s right, darling. He took me into the city, but at first it wasn‘t a date. He and I were there on business.” After a moment, she added, “Bank business,” just to make sure they were clear.

“When did it turn into a date?”

“Well, when he grabbed my hand as we were walking down the street and did the most spontaneous thing...”

Sark whirled Sydney in close to his body and started swaying gently to the music provided by a street performer. It was a move right out of a cheesy romantic comedy, but at first she didn’t really care. No one had ever done anything like this before for her. It was always romantic moves like this that appeared in her dreams, when she knew no one would criticize her or poke fun at her. She had always wanted someone like this but hadn’t even had the nerve to talk about her dream man to Francie.

It was slightly disconcerting that Sark was acting just as she had pictured her dream man. She started to wonder if telepathy and brain monitoring had given him an edge. As their feet moved in small circles, she tried to forget that both of those things were highly possible and try to focus on keeping her opinion of Sark far from that of her dream man.

That moment of concentration was when she realized people were really staring now. She struggled to get away, but the more she tried, the more tightly he held her to him.

“This is all part of the job, Sydney. People are really noticing us now.”

“I don’t see how SD-10 is going to be convinced that you and I would normally dance in the street together on our night off. We’re supposed to be believable.”

“Then, we’re just going to have to make sure to do this on every mission we go on.” Sark dipped her gracefully, and she let out a small laugh.

As they danced in small circles in the middle of the sidewalk, Sydney allowed herself to step out of her mission mode and enjoy what she was doing. With the wind blowing through her hair and the sun setting in the distance, she was starting to realize that if the situation was different, this would be a very romantic thing for Sark to do.


“Your father was a great dancer. I could hear girls whispering about how lucky I was to find such a romantic man. I shrugged it off at the time, but now I realize just how great he was.”

“I love Daddy.”

“I love him, too.” Sydney went quiet for a moment. Hearing Lily shift slightly beside her made her snap back to attention. “But let’s get back to the story. So, we were dancing in the street...”

“Now isn’t this fun, Agent Bristow?”

“No,” she said while he twirled her.

“You know what would make it even more believable?” When she didn’t answer, he continued. “If you were to show your true feelings and kiss me.”

“No,” she said a little more firmly than before.

“I just thought it would be fun. I mean, it’s plain to see that you’re having fun. Why can’t I have fun, too?”

“Because you only seem to have fun when there’s a gun in your hand and someone’s dying,” she said, then quickly added, “And I’m not having fun.”

“Liar. Your eyes are sparkling.”

She glared at him, wrenched herself out of his grasp, and started walking down the street again. He ran to catch up with her. “What should we do now?” he asked.

“Something that doesn’t involve me having to talk to you.”

“That’s what we were doing back there. You didn’t like it.” He smirked at her. “And you wouldn’t kiss me so that nonverbal activity is out of the running.”

“I am asking Sloane for a reassignment when we get back to L.A.,” she said without thinking. His face dropped at her words, surprising her. He had actually been thrown off.


“I said some mean things to your father.” Sydney found that she couldn’t look her daughter in the eye at this part of the story. “Things that I regret now. But you have to remember I didn’t know then what a great catch Julian was.”

“You used to say a lot of mean things to Dad. Why?” Lily asked honestly.

“I don’t know. I never realized it, but he hardly ever said anything mean to me. What he said sometimes hurt me because it was the truth. Your father was always good at telling the truth. The main problem was the truth wasn’t usually something I wanted to hear. Or it wasn’t something I could handle hearing at the time. Things were always a little delicate in my life.“ Sydney finally looked at Lily. “But Daddy was never out right mean like I was. I never apologized to him for that.”

“I think he knows,” Lily said while placing her hand on top of her mother’s. “But you can tell him today if it will make you feel better.”

“Thank you, Lily.”

Sydney sat in silence for a moment, thinking about what Sark’s face had looked like when she said she was going to ask for a reassignment. “I don’t think I’ve ever hurt him as much as I did that day...”

She had never before seen Sark falter in the cool exterior he presented to everyone. But it was painfully clear that the idea of her being reassigned was not what he wanted or imagined would ever happen. “Sark?’ she said hesitantly after he hadn’t said anything for a few moments.

He looked at her once more and started walking without saying a word. She ran to catch up with him. “I thought we had made progress, Bristow,” he said softy and rather calmly after they had walked side by side for a few moments.

“What do you mean?”

He stopped to look at her. “In the elevator last week. I thought I had convinced you that you didn’t need to be so emotionally reserved with me.” She looked at him in confusion. “You don’t have to pretend like you’re a faithful SD-6 servant or that you don’t enjoy my company. There’s no need for a facade with me. I know who you are, Sydney. I mean, who you really are. I’m sure there’s not many other people you know who could say that. So, for god’s sake, just give me a little trust. It’s so easy to stop pretending. You don’t have to lie about anything when you’re with me. Hell, you don’t even have to pretend that you’re not a natural blonde.” He fingered a piece of her hair.

She smiled. “I didn’t think of it in that way.”

“I figured,” he said, letting go of the piece and continuing to walk. “For being such an intelligent woman, you really don’t see what’s in front of your face sometimes.”

She touched her wig lightly, feeling where the strand was warm from his touch. “And what’s in front of my face that I don’t see?”

Sark looked at her incredulously. “I told you that I wanted you, Sydney. It might not be the smartest decision I’ve ever made, but I decided that I was tired of playing cat and mouse with you.”


“Do you remember telling me about Brian Conner and Tiffany Brown?” Sydney asked her daughter, rather abruptly interrupting the story‘s natural progression.

“Yes. They fought all the time at the beginning of the school year. And now they’re going out.”

Sydney smiled at the thought of second graders dating. “Your father and I were like that. We fought all the time as a way to keep from admitting that we loved each other. If we were as young as you are right now, I’m sure he would have pushed me in the mud at recess like Stevie Antoline did to you last month.” She smiled at the memory of her daughter walking into the house covered from head to toe in dirt and mud. “And when Daddy tricked me into going on our first date, he called me on that fact.”

“How did he trick you anyway, Mommy?” Lily asked.

Sydney reached down and grabbed her daughter’s book bag. Without a word, she then stood up and reached her hand out to Lily. After a moment, she said, “I’m going to get to that. Now let’s start walking while I tell the story.”

“Daddy’s waiting, right?”

“Yes. Daddy’s waiting...”

“I’m tired of pretending with you,” Sark finished, looking at Sydney expectantly.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered honestly.

Sark sighed, realizing that their argument/discussion wasn’t going to go anywhere he wanted it to at the moment. He glanced at their surroundings. “There’s a restaurant across the street. Let’s drop the subject for now and go get dinner.”

“Dinner was not in the mission schedule.”

“You owe me dinner after crushing my hopes so brutally before,” he said, his trademark smirk returning.

She felt a weight being lifted off of her as he seemed to return back to his normal demeanor of cold and brutal honesty mixed with sarcasm. When she nodded in agreement, he put his hand softly on the small of her back and led her across the street. It was an intimate gesture that did not go unnoticed by her.

The first thing that Sydney noticed was this restaurant was way too fancy for them to just walk into and expect a table. She was about to turn to Sark and tell him just that when the maitre d’ walked up to them.

“Mr. Sark, it is so good to see you again. And with such a pretty lady.”

Sydney looked over at Sark and narrowed his eyes. Sark just shrugged.

“I was surprised when you called us this morning to say you were in town.”

“It was last minute.”


“Your father arranged it so that we had a really romantic dinner waiting for us at the restaurant. And it was then that he sprung the whole notion of this being a date on me...”

After they had sat down, Sydney took the time to look around and really take in her surroundings. Most of the other people dining were young couples who couldn’t care less about their rather loud entrance thanks to the maitre d’s obnoxious delight in seeing Sark once more. Everyone else was too wrapped up in each other to notice. She turned back to Sark. “This is a rather romantic place, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t that the idea when you’re on a first date?”

Her eyes widened in shock. “A what?”

“A first date. I figured the only way to get you to go on was to trick you into it.” He leaned back in his chair, clearly pleased with himself. “Carpe diem, you know?”


They paused at a red light, waiting for the walk sign to flash on. “Daddy told you that he meant to trick you? Wasn’t that kind of dangerous?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I know if I were you, I wouldn’t have been too happy at being tricked.”

“Well, I wasn’t,” Sydney admitted. “You can say I was rather furious...”

Sydney glared at Sark. “This is not a date, Sark. I would never agree to go on a date with you. The whole idea of dating you repulses me.”

“Oh. So taking advantage of me in an elevator is fine, but actually going out with me in public is not?”

“Do not bring up what happened in the elevator. That was a single, isolated incident that I do not plan on repeating.”

“Single, isolated incident?” He took a sip of wine. “Did anyone ever tell you that you don’t talk like a normal person, Sydney?”

“Don’t try to take the focus off of the fact that you’re trying to sucker me into going on a date with you.”

The woman dining alone at the table next to them leaned over to talk to Sydney. “I think you’ve already been suckered.”

Sark gave the woman a devilish smile. “Thanks.”

Sydney stared back and forth from the two in shock. It wouldn’t have surprised her if Sark had hired this woman at an earlier time to help convince her not to cause him physical harm for what he was trying to do.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but you two were speaking rather loudly,” the woman said. “And if you don’t want this attractive young man, I’ll have you know that there are probably plenty of women in this restaurant who would be willing to give up their dates to have one with him, myself included.”

Sydney narrowed her eyes. “That won’t be necessary.” She turned away from the woman and glared at Sark. “Are we going to eat or what, Sark?”

“Was that you being possessive?” he asked.

“Just order,” she growled as the waiter came towards the table.


Sydney smiled at her daughter who was playing with a dog that a person had been walking down the street. “Thinking back, I should have known that your father would convince me to go through with the date. He was a smooth talker through and through. Just like you.”

Lily stood up and looked shocked. “What’s a smooth talker and why am I one?”

“A smooth talker is someone who can use words to get people to do whatever they want. And I recall many a trip to get ice cream at times that were well past your bedtime, young lady.”

“You can’t say no to ice cream.”

“No, you can’t.” She patted her daughter lightly on the head. “At that point, I thought it was time that your father realized how it felt to be put on the spot...”

Sydney’s eyes fell on the maitre d’ again. “So how many women have you brought to this little restaurant of love, Sark?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, getting slightly nervous.

“Well, I was just thinking that it seems as if you are a regular here. This isn’t the type of restaurant that you stop by on your way out of town to pick up a sandwich. It’s too romantic. So I was just wondering how many different women you brought here since you first started coming.”

Sark loosened his tie a little. “Not many.”

“A number, please,” she insisted.

He held out his hand and started counting on his fingers while mumbling names softly to himself. “Four,” he said decisively after a moment.

“And I’m sure those four women would be happy that they have been demoted to just a finger representation.” She scowled and leaned back in her chair. “This is the Sark I’ve come to know. The one that counts his conquests on his fingers.”

“I never said that I came here on dates.”

“Then who were the four women?”

He purposely held up one finger at her dramatically. “One, Katarina Svetlikana. My old partner when I was working with your mother. She and I were the ones that discovered this place.” He held up another finger. “Two, Ginny Francisco. She was an Italian businesswoman I was finessing so that I could steal business plans for your mother.” Another finger. “Three, Viviane Bordeaux, an old friend of my mother’s who had just moved from the south of France into Paris.” He extended his pinky finger. “Four, your mother.”

Sydney waited for him to explain that one, but he didn’t. “So you’re saying that I’m the first woman you’ve brought here for a romantic dinner without wanting something from them as a mission or as a friend?”

He nodded, leaving her speechless.


“What happened then?” Lily asked.

“Then, the subject was dropped, and we ate our meals in peace.”

She nodded. “So what did you and Daddy do after dinner?”

“Your father took me to...” She paused realizing she was about to say the Tuileries Gardens right outside the Louvre, but that really wouldn‘t fit in well with the story she was telling Lily. “...MacArthur Park. It was lovely at nighttime.”

“Can we go there?” Lily asked.

“We could go this weekend if you wanted.”

“Great. So what did you guys do at the park?”

A flash of memory went through Sydney’s face. She realized that she couldn’t really tell her daughter what had happened. “We walked for a little bit...”

“Why did you bring me here?” Sydney said quietly. She had been staring at Paris illuminated by the moonlight for the past few minutes silently while leaning against a small fence.

“Because, unlike the restaurant, our incessant bickering will not bother anyone out here.”

The corner of her mouth raised in a smile slightly. “We do bicker a lot, don’t we?”

“Like an old married couple.” Sark sat down on the park bench that was behind them. “Come. Sit down with me.”

Sighing, she complied and took a seat next to him. She didn’t say a word as he took her hand into his. They sat in silence for about ten minutes, neither one knowing what exactly to say to another.

Finally, Sydney turned to him. She watched him staring out across the gardens. He looked uncharacteristically peaceful and... and... happy. She had never realized that she had thought he looked discontent before.

Without really thinking, she turned his head gently to face her and gave him a light kiss. She could see the shock and surprise register in his eyes before she pulled back. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For this night. I’ve almost forgotten about how messy my life is.” She paused and took a deep breath. “You’re right.”

“Well, it took you long enough to admit it.” He paused, unconsciously rubbing where her lips had touched his. “What am I right about?”

“You are someone I can actually open up to and be myself around, strangely enough.” She took another deep breath, wondering to herself why she found it so easy to tell the truth and speak her heart to him. “You were also right on another point. There is something between us. And I didn’t want to admit it.” She turned away, his intense stare making her a little uncomfortable. “That doesn’t mean I love you, though.”

“No, you love Michael Vaughn.”

Sydney could tell that he wasn’t trying to mock here or twist her words in any way. It was just another one of his simple statements of fact. “I might.”

“I’ve always supported the principle that you can love more than one person at one time.”

“That’s debatable.”

He tried another approach as he sensed her closing herself off from him again. “Why wouldn’t you admit it?” he asked gently. “It’s not like I would have teased you.”

“My life hasn’t exactly been easy, you know. I really don’t think I’m capable of trusting anyone anymore.”

“You can trust Michael Vaughn,” Sark pointed out, kind of bitterly. He didn’t mean to keep bring the conversation around to the topic of her handler, but it didn’t seem like he and Sydney could have an honest talk about her love life without including Michael Vaughn. He hated that.

“He hasn’t done anything to prove he would betray me. At least not yet.”

“That’s rather cynical.”

“It’s the truth,” she said softly. She could feel the tears forming in her eyes, and she cursed herself for showing weakness. “In my life, all I’m used to is disappointment and betrayal.”

Sark wiped a tear off of her cheek. “I promise that you don’t have to worry about that with me. I don’t want to fit into the mold you’ve formed for the men in your life.”

“You don’t,” she whispered.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant as one.”

They sat in a comfortable silence as Sydney tried to calm her tears.

“Why are you acting so nice?” she said as he wiped the last escaped tear away. “I don’t understand you.”

“I don’t understand myself, either. I’ve never been as crazy for a woman as I am for you, Sydney. You make my life very difficult, you know. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love when I started working for SD-6.”

Sydney stared at him in shock. He had not just said what she thought he had. It wasn’t possible.


“Your father told me that he loved me that night.”

“On the first date?” Lily asked. “Isn’t that a little early?”

“A little bit. But our courtship wasn’t a normal one. Our jobs didn’t really let us have that much time to date.”

“Did your heart jump when he said he loved you?”

“No, it didn’t jump. It stopped dead in its tracks...”

“What did you just say?” she whispered. She had just told him that she didn’t love him, and yet somehow he found the courage, or stupidity, depending on one’s opinion of the situation, to say that he loved her.

“I love you, Sydney. I can’t help it. And I can‘t change it.” He stood up and offered her a hand. “Now let’s get going. We need to be noticed by at least half a dozen more people before the night is up.”

She took his hand without a word. They had almost reached the edge of the Tuileries when the weight of his words finally sunk in. He loved her.


Sydney paused for a second in her storytelling, recalling her thoughts at the time of the tale.

Throughout her whole life, those were the hardest words to get people to say when it came to her. Her father barely ever said them. Her mother was “dead” for most of her life. She hadn’t even known she had a sister until it was too late. It had been extremely hard for her to accept.

“Mommy?” Lily said hesitantly. “Are you okay? You don’t have to tell me the story if it makes you sad.”

“No, honey. It was a very happy time for me, both then and now...”

Love was not a thing tossed around lighting in her opinion.

“What?” Sark asked, realizing she had been staring at him for the past minute.

Without a word, she lunged at him and pushed him against a tree, showering kisses onto his face. He stood in shock, feeling the hardness of the tree trunk behind him and the softness of her hands as she slowly reached them up beneath his shirt and raked her nails across his chest. “You need to stop doing that whole attacking thing,” he said when she allowed him a second to breathe.

“You like it,” she whispered in his ear throatily, causing him to shiver.

The second she let her focus down, he turned the scales on her, pinning her up against the tree. Almost unconsciously, she let herself be picked up and wrapped her legs around his waist. He could feel her hands on his belt buckle, loosening it.

“I don’t know if I can say no this time,” Sark warned her. When she didn’t say anything but continued to unzip his pants, he figured that was a green light. This was the moment for which he had been waiting for what seemed like as long as he could remember.


“Mommy?” Lily asked, hesitantly again.

“Hmm?” Sydney said, realizing she hadn’t been speaking out loud for awhile.

“You drifted off on me again. Didn’t you get enough sleep last night?”

“I think I did.” Sydney smiled at her daughter and grabbed Lily’s hand again, turning them down a gravel path. “Where did I leave off?”

“You told me that you let Daddy kiss you up against a tree.”

“Okay. Well, this is something you’re going to have to trust me about for at least another five years or so. But first kisses can tell you a lot about the future of a relationship.”

“Didn’t you already kiss him? In the elevator?”

“That didn’t count since we weren’t on an official date.”

“Okay,” Lily said, trying to commit everything her mother was saying to memory for future use. “So, how was your first kiss with Daddy?”

“Magical. Unreal. Perfect.”

“And that’s why he became my daddy?”

“That’s why he became your daddy. I knew once I had kissed him that night, there was no one else who could compare...”

Sydney tried to smooth her clothes back to an acceptable level.

“Well, that was interesting,” Sark said, rebuckling his pants. “I never expected that one.”

“It’s safe to say that if anyone saw us, and I’m thinking not because we haven’t been arrested, but if someone did, they would definitely know that you and I weren’t on any mission tonight.”

“Unless it was a mission of love,” Sark joked.

Sydney smacked him hard and started walking away.

“I’m sorry,” Sark said as he ran to catch up with her.

“For a second there, I was actually enjoying being in your presence.”

“It seemed longer than a second to me. Granted, I was a little taken aback so I wasn‘t up to my normal level of performance.” This time, he managed to dodge her blow. After it seemed she had settled down and wouldn’t be throwing any more fists at him, he dared to ask, “Where does this leave us?”


“Your father wanted to know how I felt about him.”

“Did you tell him you loved him?” Lily asked innocently.

“Of course not. We had only been on one date...”

“I don’t know, but I think I lied to you before,” Sydney answered.

“About what?” he asked.

“I think when you’re not being a jerk, I might be falling in love with you. That‘s not often,” she added in warning.

“But it’s still something,” he said with a smile. “And it’s enough for now.”

They walked along the Paris road in silence, for once just happy to be in the other’s company.


“We’re here,” Sydney said, walking across the grass. She placed her hand onto the cool granite that the stone was made of and absentmindedly traced the letters spelling out Julian Sark. “Say hello to your father.”

Lily knelt in front of the grave. “Hi, Daddy.”
 
:eek: HE'S DEAD?!?!?!?!!?!?:wtf: OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!! :thud: YOU HAVE TO UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!!!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! UPDATE!!!!!!!! :banghead: HOW COULD U LET HIM DIE?!?!?!?!?!? :depressed: :sadangel:
(THANX FOR THE PM!)
 
How did he die?!!?!?! :confused: great chapter again. update soon and thanks for the pm. and when i say update soon i mean really soon. ;)
 
Sydney sat down on the swings at MacArthur Park and watched her daughter play in the sandbox a few yards away. Visiting Sark’s grave earlier that week had been hard on the both of them. Sydney and Lily had formed such a happy little bubble of life that it wasn’t easy admitting that there was something noticeably missing all the time.

Lily denied that she missed her father that much, but Sydney thought that was mostly for her benefit. Her daughter might be young, but she was smart. She knew how much her parents had loved each other, how they practically lived to be with each other. Sydney didn’t have to tell Lily stories for that to be apparent.

The wind rippled through her hair as she pumped her legs, sending her swing back and forth. She surrendered herself to the simple pleasure. Swings were always her favorite part of the playground when she was little. For some reason, she had always enjoyed the feeling of almost leaving the earth that swings provided.

She snapped out of her swinging rhythm when she heard a tiny voice say, as she breezed past, “I’m sorry, Mommy.” Screeching to a halt, she saw her daughter had left the sandbox and was standing next to the poles that held the swings up.

“What are you sorry for, baby?” Sydney asked.

Lily walked in front her mother’s now motionless swing and took a seat on the neighboring one. “I shouldn’t have asked to come here.”

“Why not? I thought you liked parks.” When Lily nodded, it dawned on Sydney. “Does this have something to do with Daddy?”

“This is where you came on your first date. I bet being here just makes you miss him more.”

Sydney smiled at her daughter’s concern. True, she had come to MacArthur Park with Sark before, but it was just for a casual stroll. She couldn’t tell her daughter that it was really Paris that made her nostalgic for her father. There were so many things that happened between them in that city. It was the first time they had met face to face. It was the place of their first mission as partners for SD-6. And like she hadn’t told Lily, it was the place of their first official date. “It’s all right, Lily. I kind of miss him all the same everywhere I go.”

Lily nodded and started swinging lightly.

“Is there something on your mind?” Sydney asked after a moment.

“Bobby’s father died when he was little, too. His mother found him another Daddy. I was just wondering why you didn’t do that for me.”

Sydney took a deep breath. “It’s not because I didn’t want to give you another, Daddy. I tried. I really did. It’s just that after a while I realized that I couldn’t find a man who I could love as much as I loved your father. And I didn’t want to force you to love a man that I couldn’t. Does that make sense?”

“Kinda. It’s like Grandma says. You and Daddy had a special love.”

Sydney smiled at the thought of her mother. Irina had really helped out for the first few years after they lost Sark. She had come rather close to self-destructing and probably would have come a lot closer if Lily and her parents weren’t there for her. “Our whole relationship was one in a million.”

“Grandma was saying the other day that Daddy was the only boyfriend you ever had that made Grandpa smile.”

Sydney thought about the way her father had warmed up to Sark when he found out that they were getting married and she was pregnant with Lily. True, he had practically killed Sark when he first found out about their relationship, but he got used to the idea rather fast. “Yeah, your father was a charmer.”

“Tell me about the wedding,” Lily said, abruptly.

“You are getting so demanding with these stories, sweetheart.”

“Please?” She put on her sweetest face.

“All right. Your father and I didn’t want too large a wedding. There were a few complications with my other job that kept us from having a large church wedding..”

“The job where you used your banking skills to help the government?” Lily said the last word rather slowly, sounding it out.

“Right. That one. There were a few people at that job that didn’t really like Daddy. They were my friends first and foremost, and they wanted to make sure that he was good enough for me, I guess.”

“And he was.”

“Absolutely. So, in hopes of keeping it simple, your father and I got married on the beach...”

Sydney looked at herself in the mirror and took a deep breath, feeling the light breeze off the ocean blow her veil. She couldn’t believe this day that she had dreamed of since she was seven was finally here. Laughing, she thought back to all the different men she had envisioned as her groom.

There was Nick Hinkle, her first grade crush. They had almost gotten married on the playground at recess, but it seemed, like most men, he got cold feet. Either that or he decided that kickball was more fun than marriage.

After that she got serious. There were only two other men she allowed herself to think of in terms of forever. The first was Noah Hicks, her first partner at SD-6. She had loved him with all her heart. That didn’t end so well, though. He had hurt her so many times, the last time ending in his death.

Danny Hecht should have probably been her husband if she had had her way. Destiny was a crazy thing, though. The same force that brought the current love of her life in had thrown Danny out. In ways, she would always be conflicted as to whether she should be grateful or resentful of SD-6.

“How are you doing?” Nadia asked as she let herself into the small tent they had set up earlier as a makeshift dressing room. She looked slightly disheveled.


“Aunt Nadia was there?”

Sydney nodded, the sadness radiating in her eyes. “That was before your aunt had to go away on her long vacation to India.”

Lily smiled and stood up. “I have to pee,” she said simply.

Sydney was left alone to think of her sister and what had gone wrong in their relationship. When she had first rescued Nadia from that women’s prison, she had high hopes that her sister would come to fight side by side for her with the US government. She knew now that was just a foolish daydream that could never become real. When Nadia disappeared with her father on the same day that Sydney learned her father had betrayed her, she unconsciously knew that a happy relationship between the two of them wasn’t an option any longer.

Nadia returned six months later without uttering a word to anyone where she had been. It had taken Sydney months to get her to admit that she had been with Sloane.

At the time of her wedding, Sydney was just glad to have her sister back. She still had the foolish hope of forming a close relationship with her at that point. It would take work and trust, but she really though it could happen.

Now she knew that was impossible. Just like Rambaldi had predicted, her sister went down the wrong path and ended up facing off with Sydney in a fight to the death.

Sydney won.

There wasn’t a day that went by where she didn’t wonder if it might have been better if she had lost.

Nadia’s death was easier to handle for Sydney. She had gotten familiar with the whole grieving process when Sark had died. The one thing she regretted was not being able to tell her daughter the whole truth about her aunt. Someday, she would explain that Nadia was not studying religion in India like Lily had always been told. Sydney didn’t know why she hadn’t told her daughter. If Lily could handle the fact that her father was dead, why couldn’t she do the same for her aunt?

The answer was clear. Lily had never actually met her father. At least, she couldn’t remember meeting him. Nadia had been a constant fixture in Lily’s life up until her fourth birthday. The day Sydney killed her.

“I’m back,” Lily said, plopping back down onto the swing. “Keep going.”

“So your aunt had come in to check on me...”

“Oh wow,” Nadia muttered. “I didn’t realize those bunch of rags would look so good on you.”

“Do not call my wedding dress a bunch of rags, Nadia,” Sydney warned playfully. She took in her appearance in the mirror again. To go along with the nature of the ceremony, she had chosen a simple white silk dress with a white satin sash that tied in the back. She had her hair pulled back into a bun, and there was a veil so thin fixed to the top that it was practically non-existent.

“You look like an angel,” Nadia whispered, touching the veil lightly. “You are going to knock his socks off.”

Sydney watched her sister’s face light up as she got an idea. She watched Nadia run out of the tent and return two seconds later with a lotus in her hand. “What am I supposed to do with this?” Sydney asked, taking the flower from her sister’s extended hand.

“Put it in your hair. It’ll add a little bit of a exotic edge to the little elegant ensemble you have going.”

“Is everyone there?” Sydney asked, doing as her sister requested and placing the flower behind her ear. Nadia hesitated in answering her question. “Tell me.”

“Everyone except Michael. I don’t think he’s coming, Syd.”


“Uncle Michael didn’t come to your wedding?” Lily asked. She couldn’t believe that one of her mother’s best friends hadn’t been there when her parents got married.

“You remember I said something about a few people not liking your father. Michael was one of those people. He eventually changed his mind, but at the time, he wasn’t really happy with the person he thought your father was...”

“You actually expected that he would show up, didn’t you?” Nadia asked, touching her sister’s shoulders lightly.

“I thought that we had enough history that he could forget about his hatred for Sark for one day.”

“Sydney,” she said hesitantly. “You and I both know that Sark isn’t the only reason he isn’t here today.”

Sydney nodded. Vaughn had gotten married about a year earlier for reasons no one knew at the time. He had gotten divorced two months into his marriage. The night he told her he was leaving his wife was etched in her memory. It was also the night that she told him she was in love with Sark.

Vaughn had shown up on her doorstep saying that marrying Lauren Reed was a mistake. He should have been with Sydney this whole time. He asked her if she had felt the same way.

The only thing she could think of was to tell him that she loved someone else. Yes, there was a point where she would have happily admitted that she was interested. But since that day in the broken elevator at SD-6 and the night in the Parisian park, she hadn’t thought about Michael Vaughn in that way.

He hadn’t taken it well. She hadn’t spoken to him since that night.

“I can’t believe you invited him at all,” Nadia interrupted her sister’s thoughts. “I mean, you haven’t spoken to him in forever.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”

“Your best friends are out there waiting for you, Sydney. He’s not there.” Nadia grabbed her hand and dragged her to the tent opening which she carefully slid back.


“Who was there, Mommy?”

“Be patient, Lily. I was about to tell you before I was so rudely interrupted.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s all right.”

Sydney could see her parents sitting in the front row. Behind them was Will Tippin and his latest girlfriend. She couldn’t keep their names straight. Ever since he started working for the New York Times, it was like he was a celebrity. There was a new girl every day of the week. She thought it might have something to do with the way that Francie died, but she would never bring the topic up with him.

Next to Will was Marshall and Carrie. They had brought little Mitch along with them. Sydney was happy to see him playing in the sand and enjoying the beautiful day. It was nice to see someone perfectly content with their life.

The only other guests were Eric Weiss and Dixon. They were both sitting in the back row, looking not too happy to be there. Sydney didn’t mind that. At least they had showed up. That meant a lot to her.

“It’s time,” Nadia whispered. “Are you sure about this?”


Sydney paused in her story telling.

“What did you say?” Lily asked.

“My mind jumped back to the first day I realized that I might love your father. The day in that elevator...”

“It’s fate,” she answered simply.

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“Would you stop trying to talk me out of something that I’ve never been more sure of? It’s infuriating. You’re infuriating.”

Nadia rolled her eyes. “And you told me that you always wanted a sister.”


Lily looked up at her mother. “I want a sister, too. But I don’t need one.”

“Well, why would you say that?”

“I know that for me to have a little sister, you would have to find a new Daddy. I don’t want a new Daddy. I like my first one.”

Sydney stared down at her daughter in shock as tears crept into her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?”

“That was really sweet, Lily. Thank you.”

This was one of those moments when Sydney knew she had done the right thing, sacrificing her sister to keep on living. There were times when all her life was amounted to pain and sadness. But these little glimpses of pure happiness. They were what kept her going.

“You’ll never guess what happened next,” she said, returning to the safety of storytelling in the hopes that it might keep her from crying anymore than she already had.

“What?”

“It started to rain...”

The rain came pouring down the second Sydney started walking down the aisle. It robbed her of getting to see the look on Sark’s face when he saw her. Instead, Sark’s face was pointed up to the sky, looking like he was going to kill whomever was responsible for the intrusion.

The handful of guests ran straight into the tent Sydney had just vacated. She heard Dixon whisper something about it being a sign, but she just ignored him. Again, she expected the bitterness but was just happy he was here.

Her mother worked her way over to her. “I think that maybe the wedding should be put off for another day. You don’t want to get married in a torrential downpour. I know how much you love Julian. You want this day to be perfect.”

Sydney nodded, happy her mother was taking charge. She had still not locked eyes with her husband-to-be and was scanning the room trying to find where he was standing.


“Your Grandma knew that I was too upset inside to handle it myself. So she told everyone that the rain didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, and we would just have to try again some time in the future.”

“Didn’t it bother you?”

“The not getting married? A little bit. But I knew my mother had a whole perfect day planned in her head and I didn’t want to let her down.” Sydney stood up and offered her hand to her daughter. “Let’s go for a walk. My legs are starting to cramp on this swing.”

They walked along a small dirt path into a grove of trees. “What happened after everyone left?”

Sydney smiled at her daughter. “I know what you’re wondering. You’re thinking, I asked for the story of the day Mommy and Daddy got married, not the story of the day they almost got married. I was just getting to that part. It all started when your Daddy finally looked at me for the first time...”

She could feel the weight of his eyes on her. “Hi,” she said lightly as they finally were left alone together in the tent.

“I never dreamed that this day would come.”

“What day is that?” she said, acting coy.

“The day when I would look at a woman standing across from me and realize that I would die if she weren’t mine. The day that I saw the love of my life in a white dress and was thankful she saw through all the bulls*** walls I’ve put up for years. The day I realized that what my father had always told me was wrong. Someday I would find a woman who made me want to be a better person. God, I love you, Sydney.”

“I love you, too.” She crossed the small space between them and let him envelop her in his arms.

“That flower looks beautiful in your hair,” he said, fingering it lightly.

“Nadia made me put it there.”

“It was a good idea. Did you know that the lotus is my favorite flower? They stand for rebirth.”

“Fitting,” she said with a smile. “I’ll try to remember that.”

Sark pulled her back away from him a little bit and looked her in the eyes. “I’ve never seen you look so perfect. Beautiful, yes. Every day. But perfection like this only comes around once in a lifetime.”

“It’s a shame we have to waste this,” she said sadly, snuggling back into his arms and taking in the smell of his cologne with a happy sigh.


“What a waste of a perfect day, right?” Sydney said to her daughter. They bent down to start picking up rocks. This was a habit of theirs, a way to remember the different places they went. Sydney hadn’t told her daughter that it was a habit she had picked up when she went on the many exotic dates she had with Sark. Exotic dates that just happened to be connected to SD-6 missions, but still, dates none the less in their minds.

“Daddy actually said all those nice things to you?”

“I know. It was like someone took control of his mouth. Some monster under his bed.” Lily giggled, and Sydney patted her on the head lightly. “I’m just kidding, sweetheart. Your father was always saying nice things like that. Only for me, though. That’s one of the perks of being in love. You can say whatever mushy thing you want and it never seems silly...”

“Who says it’s a waste?” Sark said, a familiar gleam springing up in his eye.

“What are you thinking about, Julian?”

“Well, I thought that maybe we would go through with this whole wedding thing still.”

“Everyone’s gone home,” she pointed out.

“Not the priest,” he said smirking. “That’s the only important person.”

“It’s raining.”

“I’ve never known rain to kill anyone.”

“Pneumonia,” Sydney pointed out.

“That’s stupid,” he said, glaring at her playfully. They both knew that they had been in plenty of situations that could have ended up with them getting pneumonia or hypothermia before. It was silly to use that as a reason now.

“My mother would kill me if she knew that you and I got married and she wasn’t there.”

“Your mother doesn’t have to know. We can get married now, and have another ceremony later on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her outside into the rain, ignoring her protests. “See. The rain’s not even cold.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“I don’t think you should be arguing with me, Sydney.”

“All I do is argue with you, Julian. It keeps the relationship from becoming too dull.”

“Well, let me win on this one.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her heavily. “I don’t think I can go another day without knowing you’ll be by my side.”


“And do you know what I did?” she asked Lily. “For the first and only time in our relationship, I let him win. I didn’t want to go another day without him either.”

Lily reached out her arms, and Sydney hefted her up onto her hip. “Your father and I stood out in the pouring rain with only an extremely agitated priest and got married. And you know what?”

“What?”

“It was perfect. And your Daddy was right. Perfect days are one in a million.”
 
:blink: I think im gonna go nuts... :o_O: :doh: That was absolutely beautiful... :love:
I think this emoticon practically shows what i was feeling when i was reading through this chapter :mixed: By the end of the chapter though i was really sad, that Syd has to go through those things alone... :depressed:

Altogether, that was an excellent chapter! (I think im gonna go cry now-damn emotions! :angry: ) :byesad:

(Thank you so much for this PM!)
 
that was so good!!! and so sweet! i can imagine Syd and Sark just getting married in the rain... :smiley:

update soon and thanks for the pm.
 
Sydney couldn’t believe that she was actually going to have a day to herself. It had been years since she had any free time that didn’t involve Lily in some way. Not that she really minded it.

Her father had seen how much the past few weeks had taken out of her. When he asked her what was wrong, she reluctantly told him about Lily’s constant demand for stories about her father. Jack chalked it up to a daughter being curious of where she came from. He said it was bound to happen sooner or later.

So Jack had taken her daughter away to Disneyland for the day. To give Sydney some much needed peace and quiet, as he put it.

She had told him that there was no such thing as peace and quiet when it came to her life. But it seemed like she had been wrong. There hadn’t been one phone call or unwanted disturbance all morning. She was almost unnerved by it.

Which is why, when the doorbell rang as she sat down to eat a sandwich for lunch, she was almost happy to hear it. It was just too strange for her not to be on the go constantly.

“Will,” she said in surprise when she saw him standing on her doorstep. “What brings the big New York Times journalist to my humble abode?”

Will laughed and gave her a small kiss on the cheek while crossing the threshold. “I just write a few features every once in a while.”

“You’re on the front page weekly,” she reminded him. “Seriously, what brings you here?”

“I just wanted to talk to you about a few things that I never got around to discussing.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve me telling a story, I’d be happy to.”

Will grinned at her suspiciously. “It kind of does involving you telling me a story. Is that a big deal?”

“Lily’s been asking me to tell her stories about her father practically every day for the past few weeks. I’m getting a little tired of dredging up the pain. Which is why my dad took her away on a little holiday.”

“We can do this later if it’s a bad time.” He made a move to head back out the door.

She shut the door before he could leave. “No, it’s fine. At least with you I don’t have to filter what I say. What did you want to talk about?”

“Sark, actually.”

“My husband sure is a popular topic these days.” Sydney took a seat on the couch and gestured for Will to sit next to her, which he did. “So, what do you want to know?”

“I was writing an article the other day on the reasons why most friendships break up, why people drift off. And it made me think of you, Sydney. We used to be best friends before the whole Allison Doren incident. I was practically the only thing you could count on.”

“And you want to know what happened?”

“No. I know what happened. You got caught up in your crazy spy life, and I got caught up in trying to rebuild the life I once had. We were both busy. I mean, I never disappeared completely. I was there for your wedding, and I’ve been here for you and Lily since Sark died. But there are just so many things I wasn’t here for. If a couple years ago someone had told me everything I would miss, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

“You didn’t miss that much,” Sydney insisted.

“I missed you having to kill your own sister. I heard about the whole thing over a month after it happened. And that was from your father who never really liked me.”

“I know I should have told you.”

“You shouldn’t have had to. I mean, you just killed your own flesh and blood. I should have been in your life enough to know that you needed me.”

“This sounds almost as if you’re about to propose marriage,” she joked.

“Well, I have been waiting an awfully long time,” he said with a sly grin. “Seriously, though. I want to know about some of the things I’ve missed.”

“Like Nadia’s death?”

“Yes, I do want to know about that but not right now. You’ve got too much on your plate already to be reliving those memories. For now, all I want to know is how you told everyone that you loved Sark. It must have taken a lot of courage.”

Sydney rolled her eyes. “You know that story, Will.”

“No, I honestly don’t. I had heard about it from Marshall right after it happened, but I didn’t believe him. Then I got an invitation to your wedding in the mail. The only reason I came was I thought it was a joke.”

“If you hadn’t thought that, if you knew it was real, you still would have came.”

“True. But I might have been a little better prepared.”

“So, you want me to tell you how I told the old gang that I was in love with the man that most of them either hated or feared?”

“Most of them?”

“My mother always thought he was a godsend.”

“Figures. Irina can never go with the crowd.”

“It’s her thing.” Sydney paused to collect her thoughts for a moment and then began. “It all started when Vaughn decided to divorce his wife...”

Michael Vaughn took a deep breath and knocked on Sydney’s front door. If she wasn’t home, he didn’t know what he’d do. The things he had to say to her couldn’t wait any longer. It was time she knew the truth.

Sydney opened the door quickly and stared at the man in front of her. “What are you doing here, Michael?”

“Nice greeting,” he said, walking past her and into the house.

“You haven’t been to my house in two months. Not since...” Her voice trailed off. She had moved on, but she still couldn’t say Lauren’s name.

“Since my marriage,” he filled in. “I know that it hurt you, Syd. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You could never lie to me,” he said, smiling at her again.

“I’m not lying.”

He nodded in a way that made her think he didn’t believe her and started to look around.


“My initial reaction at this point was to kick him to the curb. He was acting so strange. I mean, we hadn’t spoken a word outside of mission context in two months and now all the sudden he was on my doorstep.”

“Didn’t he divorce Lauren after two months?” Will asked.

“Exactly...”

“What do you want, Michael?” she asked, getting tired of his odd behavior.

“That’s the second time you’ve called me Michael tonight,” he pointed out.

“What’s your point?”

“You never used to call me that.”

“You used to mean something to me then.” As soon as she said it, she wished she could take it back. Purposely saying hurtful things was not something she usually did.


“I hated saying that. I mean, he meant so much to me once.”

“You two always had a lot of potential.”

“Potential that was never acted on. He got married.” Sydney knew that what she was saying would, under any other circumstance, have come out bitter. But it just seemed like a statement of fact now. “It didn’t seem to faze him much, though...”

“You still mean something to me, if that’s any consolation.” He took a seat on the sofa.

“What do you want?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway.

“Marrying Lauren was a mistake. The biggest screw-up I think I’ve ever made. I didn’t realize what a horrible decision it would turn out to be then.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sydney said. “You love your wife. She’s your whole world, Michael.”

“I don’t think I ever loved Lauren. She wasn’t who I thought she was.”

“I don’t see why you had to come to my doorstep to tell me all of this.”

“I’m getting a divorce, Sydney.” He said it so quiet that she almost didn’t hear him. Almost.

He looked up to her and saw that she was staring at him and nodding slowly.


“I really think he believed that I would take him back with open arms.”

“But you didn’t. Because you had Sark.”

“Everyone knows this now, but he was a good man. He always had been. He just had his problems like every one of us.”

“At least he didn’t have a bad habit of ruining his life,” Will pointed out.

“That ability is specifically your forte. Anyway, I stood there nodding, trying to figure out where to go from there. I think Vaughn took it as an invitation...”

Vaughn got up and walked over to where she was standing. He pulled her arms apart and grasped both her hands in his. “Don’t you see what this means?”

She didn’t say anything, and he moved in to kiss her. Before his lips made contact, she pulled away and walked to the other half of the room.


“I think it was at that point that he recalled the conversation I had with him before his wedding.” She couldn’t help but blush. “I was a little drunk the night before the ceremony and I kind of found myself on his doorstep swearing at him for giving up on what we might have had.”

“You didn’t?”

“You know what tequila does to me...”

He smirked at her. “You’re not still mad at me about giving up, are you? Contrary to what you believe, I don’t think I ever gave up on us, on our potential. Not in my heart. I love you, Sydney.”

“He just stood there, beaming at me. Don’t get me wrong. Vaughn is my friend. He always will be. But that day, it was almost as if I didn’t know who he was.”

“Sounds like he was acting like Sark,” Will observed. When Sydney looked at him questioningly, he elaborated. “He was cocky and sure that you would come running back into his arms. He figured that you had just been pining away for him the past two months.”

“That does sound like my husband,” she agreed.

“So, what happened when he said he loved you?”

“I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing...”

The silence was excruciating. She just didn’t know what to say to him to let him know that she had given up on them ever being together. With Sark, she had moved on from the place she had once been.

“Syd?” he asked hesitantly. She still didn‘t answer. “Don’t... don’t you love me, Syd?”


“Now you know the proper response to that, don’t you?”

Will smiled at her. “It’s been so long that I’ve finally dealt with the fact that you weren’t coming back. Things aren’t the same anymore. There was a reason you married Lauren, and that just couldn’t have disappeared overnight. I don’t think we’re in the same place as we once were. I want to be on my own for a little while to figure things out.”

“Any of those would have been great to say to him. They wouldn’t have hurt him too much, you know?” She looked sheepishly at one of her best friends. “But do you know what actually came out of my mouth?”

“But I love Sark.”

“You did not?” Will practically screamed, his mouth hanging open. “What a way to lay it all on the guy at once.”

She laughed at his reaction. “I know. I immediately wished I could take it back. But it was out on the table. There was nothing I could do, but try to explain...”

“Oh god. I shouldn’t have said that.” She sat down and put her head in her hands. All of the sudden, she just wanted to hide from Vaughn. When she finally chanced a look up at him, she saw he was staring out here intently. “I’m sorry. There was probably a better way to tell you that.”

“You’re lying to hurt me,” he hissed decidedly through his teeth. “I know that my marriage has hurt you a lot, but I didn’t think you’d stoop this low to get revenge.”

She felt a little anger flare up inside of her. At that second, she knew that the hiding was over. She had to tell Vaughn, and everyone else, what she had been doing with Sark. “It’s not a lie. He was there for me when I needed him.”

“I know there was something between us at one point, Sydney.”

“Yes, at one point I would have given up the world just to be with you. If you had asked me then, I would have told you that I loved you with all my heart in a second.”

“You can’t deny that even after I got married you still wanted me?”

“Of course I wanted you,” she hissed. “I loved you. But eventually I got to the point where I only thought about what we had lost every other second. And then it became once every half-hour. Then only a couple of times a day. And finally I stopped thinking about what might have been all together. And do you know why I was able to do that?”

Vaughn shook his head. She looked at him coldly. “Because of Sark. He told me that I didn’t have to pretend when I was with him. If I wanted to say something to him that would be hurtful or inappropriate, I was free to do so. For the first time in my life, I got to be the real me.”


“I don’t think I realized how much I had come to love Julian until that moment.” She smiled at the memory. “Vaughn and I fought forever about whether I was lying or not. He eventually accepted it as truth.”

“I never thought you would actually love a murderer,” Vaughn said, deliberately not looking her in the eyes.

“You almost punched him at that point, didn’t you?” Will asked with a chuckle. “The Sydney Bristow I know wouldn’t take a comment like that sitting down.”

“I had to use a little self-restraint, yes...”

“And you have no right to be criticizing him. He never abandoned me when I needed him.”

“That hurts.” Vaughn placed a hand absentmindedly over his heart.

“It should. I gave up my love of Danny for the prospect of forming a relationship with you. I sped up my mourning because I thought if I hesitated, I would lose you. And when I was finally ready to tell you how much I loved you, you got married.”


“Sounds like you laid it on thick,” Will observed.

“I was so mad at him.” Sydney sighed. “I acted irrationally. I yelled at him when I should have been gentle. He had come to me finally willing to say he loved me, and I mocked him. It was no wonder that he simply got up and left.”

“He walked away.”

“Didn’t even put up a fight.” She shook her head. “You know, I really would have thought if he loved me, he would have put up a fight.”

“So what happened then?”

“I didn’t talk to Vaughn for years. He didn’t show up when I invited him to the wedding.” Tears began to form in her eyes at the next memory that popped into her head. “The next time I saw him was at the funeral for Julian. He apologized to me.”

“He admitted that he was wrong about Sark.”

“And about me. I really wish he could have been around to get to know Julian like the rest of you did. All of you considered him your friend.”

“It turned out he was a great guy,” Will said, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe that. A part of me is screaming that there was no way this guy should have been the right one for you.”

“Yeah. You always knew that you were my soul mate, didn’t you?” She poked him lightly in the side.

“Hey! I’m just saying we should have at least given it a real shot. The closest we came was a few awkward kisses.”

“You won’t ever quit, will you?”

“Not until you admit that I am the only one for you.” Together they laughed until they cried.

When they had gotten control of themselves again, Will asked, “So how did you tell everyone else?”

“It wasn’t as hard as I thought. In typical Irina fashion, my mother loved the idea. My father was furious, but he warmed up to the idea eventually. Most of my friends at the CIA didn’t talk to me for a few weeks. But eventually they realized there has to be something else to this guy if I was able to fall in love with him. That’s the one thing I got out of all the suffering and pain it took me to tell everyone. The people in my life are so amazing.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Will pointed out.

“I thought everyone else would overreact, but I knew with you it was a given. So I put it off. Eventually, Marshall let it slip.”

“And I didn’t believe him.”

“But you came to my wedding.” Sydney slid her hand into his. “And you came to Sark’s funeral. And you were here for Lily and I. You’ve been watching over us for years now. In my mind, that’s all the matters.”

Will let her cuddle up to his side and just sat there holding her in his arms. It had taken years, but he truly thought they might have finally gotten back to the place they once were.

“I love you, Will,” she whispered.

“I love you, too, Syd.”

She looked up at him. “Platonically of course.”

“What else is there?” he said with a wink.
 
The phone echoed through the house. It had been ringing non-stop all morning for no good reason, and this time Sydney was too tired to answer it. After ten rings, it finally quieted.

Sighing, she relaxed, slumping down a little farther in her chair where she was comfortably positioned for a morning of recreational reading. This was something she hadn’t done in years. She was quite looking forward to it.

But her body stiffened as she realized that the house didn’t quite return to complete silence. She could hear Lily chattering away.

“The phone,” she growled, pulling herself up and trudging downstairs.

When she reached the kitchen, she found Lily standing in the middle of the floor grinning at her in a rather guilty way. “What did you do, young lady?” she asked her suspiciously, narrowing her eyes.

“I told Uncle Will that he could take you and me to the beach today.”

Sydney smiled. That wasn’t as bad as it could have been. “Is he on his way over?”

“He said that he was just down the road and would be here in ten minutes.”

Sydney gave her daughter a sly look and cracked a smile. “Do you know what that means?”

Lily giggled. “That means we have to hurry.”

“Right!” Sydney yelled. “Race you to see who gets ready first!”

Both Bristows ran through the house like madwomen trying to pack their bags before the other one was done. Naturally, Lily was done a full two minutes before Sydney.

“It’s because I had to pack all the Mom stuff like sunscreen and aloe vera,” she complained.

Lily just shook her head. “You lost fair and square, Mommy. Accept defeat at the hands of the better man.” Sydney gave her a funny look. “I heard it from Uncle Eric.”

She rolled her eyes as the sounds of tires moving gravel echoed in the driveway.

“Uncle Will!” Lily screamed and made a beeline for outside.

Sydney watched her daughter go running into the arms of her best friend. Smiling, she just stared at the two of them as they started to play wrestle on the front yard. The last few weeks had been nice with Will being around so much.

An outsider would assume that he was just making a play for Sydney’s affections after what he had determined was a long enough period of mourning and celibacy. But she knew better.

Simply put, Will had just missed being around her as much as she missed being around him. And he really was a godsend with Lily.

Sydney smiled at Will caught her eye through the window and waved. She waved back, grabbed the two beach bags, and headed out the door.

Like clockwork, the second they were all in the car and had retreated into a comfortable silence, Lily made a request. “Can I hear a story on the way to the beach?”

Sydney smiled at her ever-persistent daughter and nodded. “What do you want to hear about? The time I rescued Will from some people who were trying to hurt him? Or maybe the time I had to bail him out of jail because he got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or how I first found out that he still loves eighties hair bands?”

“Don’t knock Poison and Kiss,” Will muttered mostly to himself.

“I want to hear about the day Daddy proposed to you.”

“That’s a long story,” Sydney warned.

“You have all day to tell it,” Will pointed out. “Besides, I kind of want to hear it, too. I never did find out just how he got you to say yes.”

“Well, he didn’t hold me at gunpoint if that’s what you mean.”

“Why would he hold you at gunpoint?” Lily asked.

Will and Sydney exchanged a knowing look. “No reason, sweetheart,” Sydney said a second later. “Where to begin... I know! Your father and I had been fighting for most of the day.”

“Typical,” Will mumbled.

“Shut up,” Sydney warned. “I don’t even remember what it was about...”

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was hands down the best movie of that came out of that decade,” Sydney said. She was sitting in the passenger’s seat of the BMW Sark was currently racing in and out of the small country road in Italy that they were driving and cleaning her favorite gun.

“No way,” Sark said, without taking his eyes off the road. “You’re overlooking John Hughes’ best work. I mean, come on. But what we found out, is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. That’s genius!”

“Oh for crying out loud. If we’re going to get into the Brat Pack movies, Sixteen Candles was so much better than the Breakfast Club.”

“That’s blasphemy.”

“That’s the truth.” She clicked her gun back together with a satisfying snap. “Are you trying to get me to shoot you or does it just come natural to infuriate me this much?”

Sark pushed his sunglasses down his nose an inch so that she could see his eyes as he glanced over at her. “You know, I think it’s all part of our charm. I mean, who else spends their one-year anniversary chasing down wanted criminals through the Italian countryside?”

“Speaking of,” Sydney pointed at the road in front of them, “I think Giovanni and Marcello are getting away.”


“Your father and I were on business for the bank. If I remember correctly, it was some conference held in Italy. Your father had surprised me with tickets a few days earlier.”

“How exciting,” Will said, not enthused at all.

Sydney shot him a look. “For someone who worked at Credit Dauphine for so many years, being able to leave the country was a very exciting thing. Plus, there were a few men that I had met at previous conferences that I wanted to track down.”

Will grinned. “I get it,” he whispered.

“What happened next?” Lily asked. Sometimes she got so mad at her mother and Will. It was like when they were together they talked in a secret code.

“Well, we ran into the men that I had wanted to see...”

Realizing he had no option and praying that he would be forgiven for this horrible crime one day, Sark rammed the front end of the BMW into the Volvo in front of them. The car spun out of control and off the road, coming to rest against the guardrail. He pulled their car to a stop. “Do you want to do the honors or should I?”

“I’ll do it,” Sydney said, stepping out of the car.

Sark watched her cross in front of where he was sitting. She ripped open one of the car doors and dragged both the men out, throwing them down onto the dirt hard. “God, I love watching her work.”


“Hold on,” Lily said, sticking her head between the two front seats. “Daddy proposed to you at a bank convention. I thought you said he was romantic.”

“We were in Italy,” Sydney said, as if that made everything okay.

“Aren’t they hairy over there? Martina O’Reyers says they don’t shave any of their hair and they don’t bathe for weeks. She says the whole country smells like someone died.”

“How many times have I told you not to repeat what that wretched O’Reyers girl says?” Sydney said sternly. “She is a pathological liar.”

“Does she know what ‘pathological’ means?” Will asked.

“It means caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition. In this case, it refers to a person who cannot help but lie about everything and anything they say,” Lily responded matter-of-factly.

“Have you been letting her read the dictionary again?”

Sydney shrugged. “I can’t help it. She gets bored.”

“Enough about me. Let’s get back to Daddy.”

“Where was I?”

“You had just met your friends in Italy.”

“Right. Well, I visited them real quick...”

Sydney walked back to the car wiping the small amount of blood that had splattered on her face off with the bottom of her shirt. She smirked at Sark’s impressed look as she slid back into the car.

“That surpassed anything you’ve ever done,” he said.

“Thank you. It’s good to know that I’m not rusty.”

Sark shifted the car into drive and spun the tires out as they took off. “Personally, I wouldn’t have shot them in the legs, but you’ve always been soft.”

“Unlike some people, I don’t take pleasure in killing for fun.”

“You should try it. You might get a taste for it.”


“Your father and I spent the rest of the day just relaxing on some of the beaches nearby. It was nice.”

Lily and Will exchanged looks of disgust as they recognized Sydney drifting off into her happy thoughts. “Are we ever going to get to the good stuff?” Will demanded.

“Be patient,” Sydney said with a smile. “I was just getting to it...”

Sydney was standing knee deep in the water, letting the waves hit her gently. She could feel Sark behind her before she felt his arms wrap around her stomach. “Couldn’t bear not touching you,” he whispered in her ear.

She smiled and turned to look at him. “How much time do you think we have before we have to go back to the States?”

“Enough,” he said leaning in for a kiss.


“Is it all going to be as sappy as this?” Will asked as they pulled into a parking space. “Because if it is, I request a subject change.”

“No!” Lily said forcefully. “I want to hear about this.”

Will patted her on the head lightly. “Calm down, squirt. I was just kidding.”

“Are we done with the interruptions?” Sydney asked. When no one responded, she continued, “Your daddy and I had a nice dinner at a nearby beachside restaurant...”

“Did you ever think we would get to this day?” Sark asked.

“What day are you speaking about?” Sydney asked, playing dumb.

“You. Me. Three-hundred-sixty-five days. No one dead.”

She laughed loudly calling attention to the two of them. “No, I never thought it would be possible. Good thing you decided to seduce me on that elevator.”

Sark grabbed her hand abruptly. “Let’s take a walk.”


“That’s so unoriginal,” Will complained. “A walk on the beach? I bet he dropped to one knee and said he couldn’t live another day without you.”

“What’s so wrong with that?” Sydney hissed.

“He did!” Will shouted with glee. “The original Mr. Suave can’t even come up with original material for his own marriage proposal.”

“Are you telling the story or is Mommy, Uncle Will?” Lily asked.

“Sorry,” he apologized.

“Continue.”

“Yes, drill sergeant. So, your father and I went on a stroll down the beach by ourselves. The stars were out, and it was just the most perfect night in the whole world.”

“More perfect than your wedding day?” Lily said remembering her mother’s words when she was telling the story of that rainy day.

“Not more perfect. Just perfect in the same way.”

“So then what happened?”

“He got down on one knee and told me that he had never loved anyone as much as he loved me. That I was his whole world. He pulled the most gorgeous ring I had ever seen out of his back pocket and asked me to marry him.”

“Wow,” Lily said. Her naive little mind let her believe her mother’s words without wondering why there wasn’t that much detail to the story.

Will looked at Sydney suspiciously. She merely avoided eye contact. In response, he pulled a five-dollar bill out of his back pocket and held it out to Lily. “Why don’t you go buy some ice cream and take it down by the water to eat?”

She whipped the money out of his hand. “Thanks, Uncle Will!” she called over her shoulder as she ran off.

Will and Sydney sat in silence for a few minutes before she asked him the obvious question. “Why did you just get rid of my daughter?”

“Because I know you and Sark both. And I know what you just told her wasn’t even close to the real story. I want to hear it.”

She sighed. “It was that obvious?”

“To us grown-ups, yes. To a seven-year-old girl, not so much.”

“Well, it was pretty much all the truth up until the proposal part. At least, it was a half-truth with the old business acquaintances, but what mother could actually tell her daughter that her parents used to threaten and kill people for a living?”

“You’re forgetting that both of her grandparents did the same thing, too. Eventually, you’re going to have to tell her.”

“And why is that?”

“She’ll need to know what’s needed of her to take over the family business.”

Sydney slapped him hard on the arm. “That isn’t even funny.”

“I got that,” he said rubbing his arm with a little too much drama than was necessary. “So, hurry up and tell the rest of the story before Lily comes back.”

“Fine. We were going on a stroll down the beach, like I said, when, for whatever reason, the topic of a more permanent arrangement came up...”

“So, what do you think about making this permanent?” Sark asked.

She looked at him in disgust. “Okay. That was so not romantic at all. Do you want to try again?”

“I just wanted to know where you stood on this. Because word around the office has been you’ve sworn off men completely and are now a lesbian. And I would kind of like to know if that was true.”

“Why does everyone think I’ve switched sides?”

“Well, you haven’t really had any sort of noticeable relationship in a year. People figure there has to be a good reason why you’re keeping your love life secret all of the sudden. I mean, you went from openly pinning for people you couldn’t have or people who had died loving you to nothing. You have to admit it is a little odd in retrospect.”

“I guess,” she said, kicking up a little sand. “That still doesn’t give anyone a right to insinuate things about my sexual preferences.”

“People will talk.”

Sydney glared at him. “This is all a joke to you, isn’t it?”


“Before he had a chance to refuse or deny it, there were gunshots ringing through the air.”

“In typical Sydney Bristow fashion, right?”

“It just wouldn’t be a momentous event if there weren’t some sort of gunplay to it...”

Sark pushed Sydney down onto the sand, making sure that his body covered as much of hers as possible. She started to elbow him in the side. “Move. You’re making me swallow sand,” she hissed.

Scanning the distance, he let her squirm out from under him as the gunshots slowed down to a trickle. “I don’t think your job from earlier was finished,” he said pointing to a figure down the beach. “That looks like Marcello to me.”

“Damnit!” she screamed getting up and stomping towards him. “I told him if he tried to retaliate I would have to kill him. Why do these men always force me to do evil things?”

“Because that’s our job?” Sark supplied.

She rolled her eyes and pulled her gun out from where it was concealed.


Will placed his baseball hat on top of his face, which was burning from the heat of the sun. “You know, I don’t think I will ever understand where you women put your guns when you wear those skintight dresses we men love so much.”

“It’s a secret of the trade. I would have to take off one of your limbs if I told you.”

“Leg holster would have been an adequate answer to satisfy my curiosity, you know.”

“But that isn’t the right answer,” she said with a sly grin. “But let’s not talk about that. Where was I? Oh that’s right! I let my temper get the best of me and was chasing after Marcello...”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Sydney screamed as she fired a few warning shots in his direction. He took off almost immediately in the other direction. She looked back at her boyfriend. “Why do they always run?”

“Because they don’t realize they can’t win.” He watched her take off after Marcello. “At least, he hasn’t realized it yet.” With a sigh, he began to try to catch up to his crazy gun-toting girlfriend.


“When he caught up to me, the fight was pretty much over.” She grimaced at the memory. “If I had known what he was planning on doing that night, I think I might have tried to be a little neater about it...”

“Jesus, Bristow! Can’t you be normal and worry about getting stains on your dress?” Sark yelled.

Sydney looked down at the few bloodstains that were now soaking into her new Dolce dress. “This always happens when I buy a new piece of clothing,” she mumbled as she half-heartedly tried to rub the stain out.

“At least it’s not any of your blood.”

Before Sydney could respond, she saw Sark’s face pale.


“It seems like Marcello wasn’t alone in his little escapade of revenge. He brought a number of rather hefty looking Italian men with him.”

“So what did you two do?” Will moved the hat away from his eyes.

“The only thing we could do. We threw caution to the wind and attacked them before they could launch any sort of offensive move.” She glanced over at him. “I mean, my dress was already ruined so what did I have to lose...”

Sydney and Sark worked without any words exchanging between them. They had been functioning as partners for so long that they didn’t need them.

Before anyone could blink, everyone except for Sark and Sydney were down on the ground either dead or moaning in great pain. Sydney stood with her gun in her hand off to the side, making sure that no one moved to attack them again. She looked over to where Sark was on one knee, resting for a moment. The fight seemed to have taken a lot out of him.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” He looked up at her. “So what do you think?”

“About what?” she asked, not really paying attention.

“Getting married.”

She turned to him. “You’re seriously asking me?”

“Yeah.”

Lowering the gun, she looked at where he kneeled. “Are you crazy?”

“Crazy about you,” he said, knowing that she would find humor in the completely obvious pick-up line.

“You’re actually proposing to me over a bunch of dead and wounded bodies?”

“What better time is there?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe after a nice night at home. Or even a quiet walk in the park. Heck! I’d take a proposal over a Big Mac and fries over this.”

“Well this is what you’re getting,” he said, pulling a ring out of his back pocket.


“Typical Sark, right?” Sydney said, smiling to her best friend as her daughter stumbled her way back through the crowd and over to their beach blankets.

“Yeah, typical Sark,” Will agreed.

“Are you still telling the story?” Lily asked, plopping down beside her mother.

“Will’s a little slow sometimes, honey. I had to start over a few times before he could understand the story.” Will glared at her. “But we’re right about at the part where you and I left off earlier. Your daddy had just asked me to marry him...”

“Well, if this is all I’m getting, I might have to pass.” Sydney gave him one last look and began walking back up the beach to where the restaurant was.

Sark ran after her and caught up rather quickly. “So, is that a no?”

“Of course it’s not a no, you idiot,” she said, punching him lightly on the arm. “But I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t the best proposal ever.”

“I thought it fit nicely,” he said honestly.

Stopping, she turned to look at him and found herself studying his face. At that moment, she realized something.


“I decided at that moment that he was right. It did fit nicely. In fact, it was the perfect proposal. I just didn’t see it at first.”

“I believe that just might have been the perfect proposal for our relationship,” she said. She tentatively held out her hand and allowed him to slip the ring onto it. “My father is going to flip.”

“Do we have to tell him?” Sark asked, sliding her newly ringed hand into his.

“I’ll give you a few days head start, I guess.”


Sydney finished packing up their beach stuff and began to walk with Lily and Will back to his car. “And that was how your father and I got engaged.”

Lily buckled in. “That was a good story, Mom. Have you ever considered becoming a professional storyteller?”

“What? Like Mr. Rogers?” Will asked as he turned out onto the street.

“Don’t knock Mr. Rogers,” Sydney warned. “He had a very lucrative career. And those cardigan sweaters never went out of style. The man was a genius.”

They sat in silence for a few miles, just listening to the radio. Eventually, Lily got bored and asked, “Will you tell me another story, Mommy?”

“Not today, sweetie,” Sydney replied. “It’s getting late and you have to go straight to bed when we get home.”

“How far are we?” Lily asked, her eyes drooping slightly.

“We’re about two minutes away,” Will answered.

True to his statement, approximately two minutes later Will pulled his car into Sydney’s driveway. Sydney ushered a half-asleep Lily out of the car. Then, she walked around to stand by the driver‘s side window. “Thank you for today, Will. It’s been fun.”

“It was my pleasure.” Will kissed her lightly on the cheek before placing the car into reverse and backing out of the driveway.

Sydney smiled and walked over to where her daughter was standing before their front stoop. “Why didn’t you go inside, sweetie?”

“You got flowers, Mommy,” Lily said pointing to a bouquet that was resting on the first step.

Sydney bent down and picked them up. “Why don’t you go inside, Lily, and brush your teeth? Mommy will be inside in a minute.”

Too tired to argue, Lily nodded and went inside. The second she was out of sight, Sydney let herself crumple to the ground. In her hand was a dozen lotus flowers.

Her mind raced with a few specific memories. Nadia, placing the flower in her hair on the day of her wedding. Sark, telling her that it was his favorite flower. Nadia, calling the lotus exotic. The last thing that ran through her head before she found the strength to go inside and get her daughter ready for bed was what shook her up and confused her the most. They were Sark’s own words.

“They stand for rebirth.”
 
FIRST TO REPLY!! :woot:

Hold on a sec....is Sark alive?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!? :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: Please Please Please let that be true!

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was hands down the best movie of that came out of that decade,” Sydney said. She was sitting in the passenger’s seat of the BMW Sark was currently racing in and out of the small country road in Italy that they were driving and cleaning her favorite gun.

“No way,” Sark said, without taking his eyes off the road. “You’re overlooking John Hughes’ best work. I mean, come on. But what we found out, is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. That’s genius!”

“Oh for crying out loud. If we’re going to get into the Brat Pack movies, Sixteen Candles was so much better than the Breakfast Club.”

Classic witty banter...and I have to say that those three movies are probably my all-time favorites! (y)
 
Ive been dying to review all week! So here it goes:

That was a great, great chapter! :D Was a bit of a cliffy though. :madfire: Damn cliffies...(mutters off) Well anyways, yay! He has got to be alive! :argue: So how long do we have to wait to see (well, read in this case) Sark (assuming he is alive?)? Update, Update, for the love of God, UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :jump:
 
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