kidblink83
Cadet
Chapter Three
Sydney wasn’t surprised to find a small group of people gathering in the hallway right outside Will’s hospital room. She had driven there almost immediately with Noah, but first she had called Sark to find out that he was already on his way. Their communication system at the base of operations was one of the best and fastest in the world.
Anna Espinosa was talking softly with Irina in one of the corners, obviously about something to do with the work she had just finished up in France. Sydney had found it comforting that Anna had opted to come out of her deep cover to return home to help with the newly surfaced problem. Their team had become an effortless machine, the best in the whole world at what they did. More importantly, over the past six months, they had become a family. A family that she was proud to be the keystone of.
Amy stepped out of the room and shut the door softly behind them. She gave Noah a small smile and began to explain. “The doctors pulled him out of the coma an hour ago. He woke up just fine, and it looks like there won’t be any lasting damage. They instructed me to not let him be excited, but I understand that he has information that you need right now. In fact, he’s been adamantly demanding to see Sydney since the moment he woke up. “
“He was always partial to you,” Sark joked.
“I understand that this is a conflict of interest between your agency’s top secret status and my affiliation with the CIA. Therefore, I’m going down to the restaurant on the corner where I will be having an hour-long lunch. When I get back, I expect none of you to be here and Will to be resting peacefully.”
“I’ll come with you to get food,” Noah volunteered. “I can be briefed later.”
Amy smiled at them all. “It means a lot to me and Will to have you here.” She nodded and walked down the hallways away from the crowd, hand in hand with Noah.
Sydney waited until they were out of sight before turning to her mother. “Should I go in alone or should you all come with me?”
“I think Anna and I will stay out here and use the time to discuss the new prospects created by her work in France. You take Julian in there with you. Don’t upset Will. He’s been through a lot.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Sydney said, slightly hurt by her mother’s words.
Irina smiled and turned her gaze towards Sark. “I wasn’t referring to you, sweetheart.”
“I might be a complete bastard at times, but I’m not unfeeling,” Sark stated.
“Just behave yourself.” Irina turned her attention back towards Anna.
Sydney looked over at her husband. “Shall we?”
With a nod, they both entered the hospital room. Will was sitting up on his bed, staring out the window. He turned towards them as Sark cleared his throat. “Hi,” he said simply, smiling at them.
“Hey,” Sydney said. She walked over and took a seat on the side of the hospital bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Never better. Thanks for being there for me, Syd.”
“I wasn’t that good. I mean, if it had been one of the other agents, you probably wouldn’t have--”
Will cut her off. “Don’t go there. I don’t care what the rational thinking might be in this situation. If my life is in trouble, I wouldn’t want any other person coming to me aid.” He smirked. “Even if all you can do is waddle and point a gun. How is the baby doing?”
“She’s a fighter like her mom. There has been non-stop kicking all morning.”
“The Bristow genes at work.”
The room fell silent as they all began to think of the same thing. Will needed to relive whatever had happened to him, and it wasn’t going to be easy.
“The children of the prophecy,” Sark stated, getting the ball rolling.
“Let me start at the beginning. When I got off the plan, I was supposed to meet a contact that would help me develop a cover for my assignment. Instead of handing me a fake passport and a rundown of the current situation, he handed me a box.”
“What was in the box?”
“A piece of parchment similar to the one Sydney recovered from Sloane’s home. Rambaldi had a prophecy that it seems he kept mostly to himself to the extent that he had it hidden away when he died. It was recovered by my contact on his previous mission, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. He knew that Irina Derevko was always a collector of Rambaldi artifacts, so he was offering it to her as an act of good faith.”
“You have the parchment?” Sydney asked.
“No. It was taken from me when my plane landed in L.A.”
“But you read it before you put it away for the flight,” Sark stated.
“As a safety precaution, I did. I almost wish I didn’t. It would be better if you didn’t have to be worried about this, Syd.”
“I think it would be better if I knew the danger that was ahead.” She looked her oldest friend in the eye. “It has something to do with my baby, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does. It said that there was going to be a confrontation between the children of the prophecy. This confrontation would bring about Rambaldi‘s endgame, whatever that is. Like all of his other prophecies, it was extremely vague on the details. However, it did mention rather clearly that one of the children would be the direct offspring of the women of the prophecy and her greatest adversary.”
“That would be me,” Sark said with a grin. “I always knew that you had met your match in me.”
Sydney rolled her eyes. “Could we focus please? The life of our firstborn child is in jeopardy here.”
“The prophecy didn’t mention who the other children were or how many of them there are. My first thought was there might be some Project: Christmas like operation out there somewhere. Then I wondered what exactly Rambaldi meant by confrontation. It could either be a fight to the death kind of confrontation or just a straightforward meeting. Personally, I’m hoping he was just insinuating that your child would be meeting with the others of the prophecy at one specific moment that was pivotal to Rambaldi’s plan. But that makes no sense in the long run.”
“Hold on,” Sark said. “I think I’m recalling something that should help us put some of the pieces together. Syd, do you remember what I said to you when you didn’t want to leave me behind on our rescue mission of Michael Vaughn’s son?”
“You said that Tyler was more important than either one of us. Do you think he’s involved in this prophecy?”
“I told you that I had heard that the Covenant believed Tyler Vaughn to be the key to some prophecy. Things were just as vague with that intel as they are now with this new development. Except there was one thing I knew for sure. There was another half to the prophecy that neither I nor the Covenant knew.”
“You said you thought there was someone else they wanted.”
“Right. But they hadn’t made a move towards trying to get their hands on another person.” Sark looked at his wife. “They didn’t make a move, Sydney, because the person didn’t exist yet. Our child wasn’t born.”
“There’s one problem to that theory,” Will pointed out. “You saved Tyler Vaughn’s life almost one year ago. At that time the Covenant knew about the prophecy involving Tyler and one other person. It couldn’t be linked with Rambaldi’s children of the prophecy. It was just unveiled a few days ago.”
“The Covenant was always more powerful than anyone ever gave them credit for. Is it possible that the reason no one had discovered this Rambaldi prophecy was because the Covenant didn’t want them to?” Sark asked. “My theory is the Covenant was holding this prophecy hostage and they made a mistake. They lost it, and your contact found it, Tippin.”
“It makes sense,” Sydney pointed out. “Rambaldi doesn’t like to pull new figures into his prophecy. He would want to stick with the old players. Tyler and my child are the next generation of the old players. They would be the ones that the Covenant and Rambaldi would want.”
Will looked over at her. “So what do we do now?”
Sydney was about to answer when she felt a twinge in her belly. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration as a realization dawned on her. “For now, we get a nurse.” She glanced at her husband. “I’m having the baby.”
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
The labor went rather well compared to the average. Not for the first time in her life, Sydney was glad that she had a high threshold for tolerating pain. She had made it through the first ten hours of labor without screaming once. Sark had stood by her side through the whole thing, doing his best to help ease her pain and let her know how much he loved her.
When she reached her fifteenth hour of labor without much progress and still without showing any sign of pain, the doctor suggested that Sark take a few minutes break to clear his head so that he come back into the room fresh-minded. He initially refused, but when the doctor assured him that no woman had ever had a baby in just five minutes, he reluctantly left the room.
He took the first chair he could find outside the delivery room and put his head between his hands.
“Is everything all right?” Anna asked, sitting down beside him.
“I didn’t hear you coming,” he said, looking over at her.
“And that makes me worried. In all the time we’ve known each other, Julian, you’ve never let your guard down. Not once. So, I ask again, is everything all right?”
“As much as it can be, yes.” He sighed. “I can see how hard this is on her, Anna. She’s in so much pain, and she’s being so brave.”
“Sydney is a strong woman.”
“I’ve never been this scared in my life. It’s been fifteen hours, and nothing has happened. The doctor keeps telling me that everything is going just as planned, but I can tell he’s lying. Something’s wrong and no one wants to let me know.”
“Honestly, if something was wrong, they would tell you.”
“I can’t lose her, Anna.”
“You won’t.”
“You can’t assure me of that. Women die from complications during childbirth all the time.”
Anna nodded. “I know. But those women aren’t your wife. She would never let something as silly as childbirth kill her. The only way Sydney Bristow is going to die is in her sleep from old age. Now you need to stop being a complete wimp and go back to your wife. Don’t let her see the worry on your face because there’s really no need for it. Everything will be fine, you moron.”
“I love you,” he said, smiling at her.
“I know. Now go.”
Sark entered the room and immediately noticed the flurry of activity. “What’s going on?” he demanded to the first person he made eye contact with.
“Your wife’s finally ready to have the baby, Mr. Lazarey. It should be any moment now.”
Sark raced to Sydney’s side and smiled. “You always have to make everything so dramatic, don’t you?” She didn’t respond. She just reached out and grasped his hand with hers as tightly as she could. He lighted smoothed her hair with his free hand. “I’m here, Syd. Why don’t you let me be the strong one for once?”
Without a word, she finally let loose a scream of pain.
One hour later, Sark was staring down at his baby daughter who was calmly lying on her mother’s breast. He was awed by the fact that he could be so scared and so excited at the same time.
Sydney looked up at him and smiled. “I want to call her Hope.”
“Hope,” Sark said, running the name over his tongue. “I like that.”
“Hope Anastasia Lazarey.”
His heart jumped slightly. “My mother’s name?”
“It seemed fitting. Plus, I think it gives it a nice exotic flair.” She laughed. “And I couldn’t name her Irina. My mother has a big enough head as it is.”
He turned to his daughter. “What do you think, Hope? Is that a good name?” She cooed softly at her father. “Yeah, I think she likes it.”
“Will you do me a favor, Julian?” she asked.
Her serious tone made him frown slightly. “Anything you want.”
“Promise me that you’ll make sure no one moves on the new intel Will gave us until I get out of the hospital. I have this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that I should be the one handling this situation.”
“Don’t lie. You’re just a control freak.” He smiled at her. “But I promise all the same. We’ll wait until you come home before taking the next step. For now, you need to get some rest. Let me have Hope.”
Reluctantly, she let him take their daughter out of her arms. “Are you sure you can handle her?”
“I’m going to have to get used to handling her. I mean, these are the easy years. She hasn’t discovered boys yet.”
Sydney groaned. “I don’t even want to think about that yet. It’s going to take all our strength just to keep her from falling in love with a guy just like her father. My daughter will not be marrying a schmuck like I did.”
He laughed. “Get some rest, darling. I will see you in a few hours.”
Since she was thoroughly exhausted, it didn’t take much for her to slip into unconsciousness. Sark sat down in the chair next to the bed. He knew that he should probably go take Hope down to the nurses and let them do another check on her. But, at the moment, all he really wanted to do was just sit there holding her in his arms.
“I think your mother was dead on with your name, my little Hope.”
Sydney wasn’t surprised to find a small group of people gathering in the hallway right outside Will’s hospital room. She had driven there almost immediately with Noah, but first she had called Sark to find out that he was already on his way. Their communication system at the base of operations was one of the best and fastest in the world.
Anna Espinosa was talking softly with Irina in one of the corners, obviously about something to do with the work she had just finished up in France. Sydney had found it comforting that Anna had opted to come out of her deep cover to return home to help with the newly surfaced problem. Their team had become an effortless machine, the best in the whole world at what they did. More importantly, over the past six months, they had become a family. A family that she was proud to be the keystone of.
Amy stepped out of the room and shut the door softly behind them. She gave Noah a small smile and began to explain. “The doctors pulled him out of the coma an hour ago. He woke up just fine, and it looks like there won’t be any lasting damage. They instructed me to not let him be excited, but I understand that he has information that you need right now. In fact, he’s been adamantly demanding to see Sydney since the moment he woke up. “
“He was always partial to you,” Sark joked.
“I understand that this is a conflict of interest between your agency’s top secret status and my affiliation with the CIA. Therefore, I’m going down to the restaurant on the corner where I will be having an hour-long lunch. When I get back, I expect none of you to be here and Will to be resting peacefully.”
“I’ll come with you to get food,” Noah volunteered. “I can be briefed later.”
Amy smiled at them all. “It means a lot to me and Will to have you here.” She nodded and walked down the hallways away from the crowd, hand in hand with Noah.
Sydney waited until they were out of sight before turning to her mother. “Should I go in alone or should you all come with me?”
“I think Anna and I will stay out here and use the time to discuss the new prospects created by her work in France. You take Julian in there with you. Don’t upset Will. He’s been through a lot.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Sydney said, slightly hurt by her mother’s words.
Irina smiled and turned her gaze towards Sark. “I wasn’t referring to you, sweetheart.”
“I might be a complete bastard at times, but I’m not unfeeling,” Sark stated.
“Just behave yourself.” Irina turned her attention back towards Anna.
Sydney looked over at her husband. “Shall we?”
With a nod, they both entered the hospital room. Will was sitting up on his bed, staring out the window. He turned towards them as Sark cleared his throat. “Hi,” he said simply, smiling at them.
“Hey,” Sydney said. She walked over and took a seat on the side of the hospital bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Never better. Thanks for being there for me, Syd.”
“I wasn’t that good. I mean, if it had been one of the other agents, you probably wouldn’t have--”
Will cut her off. “Don’t go there. I don’t care what the rational thinking might be in this situation. If my life is in trouble, I wouldn’t want any other person coming to me aid.” He smirked. “Even if all you can do is waddle and point a gun. How is the baby doing?”
“She’s a fighter like her mom. There has been non-stop kicking all morning.”
“The Bristow genes at work.”
The room fell silent as they all began to think of the same thing. Will needed to relive whatever had happened to him, and it wasn’t going to be easy.
“The children of the prophecy,” Sark stated, getting the ball rolling.
“Let me start at the beginning. When I got off the plan, I was supposed to meet a contact that would help me develop a cover for my assignment. Instead of handing me a fake passport and a rundown of the current situation, he handed me a box.”
“What was in the box?”
“A piece of parchment similar to the one Sydney recovered from Sloane’s home. Rambaldi had a prophecy that it seems he kept mostly to himself to the extent that he had it hidden away when he died. It was recovered by my contact on his previous mission, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. He knew that Irina Derevko was always a collector of Rambaldi artifacts, so he was offering it to her as an act of good faith.”
“You have the parchment?” Sydney asked.
“No. It was taken from me when my plane landed in L.A.”
“But you read it before you put it away for the flight,” Sark stated.
“As a safety precaution, I did. I almost wish I didn’t. It would be better if you didn’t have to be worried about this, Syd.”
“I think it would be better if I knew the danger that was ahead.” She looked her oldest friend in the eye. “It has something to do with my baby, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does. It said that there was going to be a confrontation between the children of the prophecy. This confrontation would bring about Rambaldi‘s endgame, whatever that is. Like all of his other prophecies, it was extremely vague on the details. However, it did mention rather clearly that one of the children would be the direct offspring of the women of the prophecy and her greatest adversary.”
“That would be me,” Sark said with a grin. “I always knew that you had met your match in me.”
Sydney rolled her eyes. “Could we focus please? The life of our firstborn child is in jeopardy here.”
“The prophecy didn’t mention who the other children were or how many of them there are. My first thought was there might be some Project: Christmas like operation out there somewhere. Then I wondered what exactly Rambaldi meant by confrontation. It could either be a fight to the death kind of confrontation or just a straightforward meeting. Personally, I’m hoping he was just insinuating that your child would be meeting with the others of the prophecy at one specific moment that was pivotal to Rambaldi’s plan. But that makes no sense in the long run.”
“Hold on,” Sark said. “I think I’m recalling something that should help us put some of the pieces together. Syd, do you remember what I said to you when you didn’t want to leave me behind on our rescue mission of Michael Vaughn’s son?”
“You said that Tyler was more important than either one of us. Do you think he’s involved in this prophecy?”
“I told you that I had heard that the Covenant believed Tyler Vaughn to be the key to some prophecy. Things were just as vague with that intel as they are now with this new development. Except there was one thing I knew for sure. There was another half to the prophecy that neither I nor the Covenant knew.”
“You said you thought there was someone else they wanted.”
“Right. But they hadn’t made a move towards trying to get their hands on another person.” Sark looked at his wife. “They didn’t make a move, Sydney, because the person didn’t exist yet. Our child wasn’t born.”
“There’s one problem to that theory,” Will pointed out. “You saved Tyler Vaughn’s life almost one year ago. At that time the Covenant knew about the prophecy involving Tyler and one other person. It couldn’t be linked with Rambaldi’s children of the prophecy. It was just unveiled a few days ago.”
“The Covenant was always more powerful than anyone ever gave them credit for. Is it possible that the reason no one had discovered this Rambaldi prophecy was because the Covenant didn’t want them to?” Sark asked. “My theory is the Covenant was holding this prophecy hostage and they made a mistake. They lost it, and your contact found it, Tippin.”
“It makes sense,” Sydney pointed out. “Rambaldi doesn’t like to pull new figures into his prophecy. He would want to stick with the old players. Tyler and my child are the next generation of the old players. They would be the ones that the Covenant and Rambaldi would want.”
Will looked over at her. “So what do we do now?”
Sydney was about to answer when she felt a twinge in her belly. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration as a realization dawned on her. “For now, we get a nurse.” She glanced at her husband. “I’m having the baby.”
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
The labor went rather well compared to the average. Not for the first time in her life, Sydney was glad that she had a high threshold for tolerating pain. She had made it through the first ten hours of labor without screaming once. Sark had stood by her side through the whole thing, doing his best to help ease her pain and let her know how much he loved her.
When she reached her fifteenth hour of labor without much progress and still without showing any sign of pain, the doctor suggested that Sark take a few minutes break to clear his head so that he come back into the room fresh-minded. He initially refused, but when the doctor assured him that no woman had ever had a baby in just five minutes, he reluctantly left the room.
He took the first chair he could find outside the delivery room and put his head between his hands.
“Is everything all right?” Anna asked, sitting down beside him.
“I didn’t hear you coming,” he said, looking over at her.
“And that makes me worried. In all the time we’ve known each other, Julian, you’ve never let your guard down. Not once. So, I ask again, is everything all right?”
“As much as it can be, yes.” He sighed. “I can see how hard this is on her, Anna. She’s in so much pain, and she’s being so brave.”
“Sydney is a strong woman.”
“I’ve never been this scared in my life. It’s been fifteen hours, and nothing has happened. The doctor keeps telling me that everything is going just as planned, but I can tell he’s lying. Something’s wrong and no one wants to let me know.”
“Honestly, if something was wrong, they would tell you.”
“I can’t lose her, Anna.”
“You won’t.”
“You can’t assure me of that. Women die from complications during childbirth all the time.”
Anna nodded. “I know. But those women aren’t your wife. She would never let something as silly as childbirth kill her. The only way Sydney Bristow is going to die is in her sleep from old age. Now you need to stop being a complete wimp and go back to your wife. Don’t let her see the worry on your face because there’s really no need for it. Everything will be fine, you moron.”
“I love you,” he said, smiling at her.
“I know. Now go.”
Sark entered the room and immediately noticed the flurry of activity. “What’s going on?” he demanded to the first person he made eye contact with.
“Your wife’s finally ready to have the baby, Mr. Lazarey. It should be any moment now.”
Sark raced to Sydney’s side and smiled. “You always have to make everything so dramatic, don’t you?” She didn’t respond. She just reached out and grasped his hand with hers as tightly as she could. He lighted smoothed her hair with his free hand. “I’m here, Syd. Why don’t you let me be the strong one for once?”
Without a word, she finally let loose a scream of pain.
One hour later, Sark was staring down at his baby daughter who was calmly lying on her mother’s breast. He was awed by the fact that he could be so scared and so excited at the same time.
Sydney looked up at him and smiled. “I want to call her Hope.”
“Hope,” Sark said, running the name over his tongue. “I like that.”
“Hope Anastasia Lazarey.”
His heart jumped slightly. “My mother’s name?”
“It seemed fitting. Plus, I think it gives it a nice exotic flair.” She laughed. “And I couldn’t name her Irina. My mother has a big enough head as it is.”
He turned to his daughter. “What do you think, Hope? Is that a good name?” She cooed softly at her father. “Yeah, I think she likes it.”
“Will you do me a favor, Julian?” she asked.
Her serious tone made him frown slightly. “Anything you want.”
“Promise me that you’ll make sure no one moves on the new intel Will gave us until I get out of the hospital. I have this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that I should be the one handling this situation.”
“Don’t lie. You’re just a control freak.” He smiled at her. “But I promise all the same. We’ll wait until you come home before taking the next step. For now, you need to get some rest. Let me have Hope.”
Reluctantly, she let him take their daughter out of her arms. “Are you sure you can handle her?”
“I’m going to have to get used to handling her. I mean, these are the easy years. She hasn’t discovered boys yet.”
Sydney groaned. “I don’t even want to think about that yet. It’s going to take all our strength just to keep her from falling in love with a guy just like her father. My daughter will not be marrying a schmuck like I did.”
He laughed. “Get some rest, darling. I will see you in a few hours.”
Since she was thoroughly exhausted, it didn’t take much for her to slip into unconsciousness. Sark sat down in the chair next to the bed. He knew that he should probably go take Hope down to the nurses and let them do another check on her. But, at the moment, all he really wanted to do was just sit there holding her in his arms.
“I think your mother was dead on with your name, my little Hope.”
I can't wait for more!!