vartan-lova
Cadet
great chapter! cant wait for more!!
Someday We'll Know
- Thread starter kidblink83
- Start date
kidblink83
Cadet
Chapter Four
Sydney fiddled with a straw wrapper she had had in her hands for the majority of the flight. She couldn’t believe she was actually returning to Los Angeles.
Sark reached across the aisle to grab her hand gently with his. “You don’t have to be nervous, Sydney. The people we’re going to love you just as much as they did before. Nothing has changed.”
“Something has changed,” she said, looking at him seriously. “You’re a part of my life now. You’re all of my life now. They’ve had time to adjust to that fact, but none of them, except my father, have actually seen the two of us together. They might decide it’s better if we return to New York.”
“The objective is bigger than any of their personal feelings, Sydney.”
She jumped slightly as the landing gear hit runway cement. They were here.
After about ten minutes of taxiing, the plane came to a complete stop and its passengers stood up to exit the plane. Sark gave her one more smile before they walked out into the harsh, smoggy air of L.A. Vaughn was standing next to an SUV with his wife.
Sydney hesitantly held up her hand in a wave and was happy to see Vaughn smiling back at her. “Maybe we can return to normal,” she let herself believe as she walked towards him.
“Vaughn. Lauren. I’m so sorry.”
“We’ll get through it,” Lauren said. “Thank you so much for answering Michael’s call. I had my doubts.”
“Neither one of us were sure that you would give up your normal life to help two people who almost ruined your life.”
“Number one, you did not ruin my life. In fact, what you did to me was more of a favor.” She glanced at the man beside her, thinking of how happy she was that he was in her life. “And number two, I fully intend to return to that normal life when we’re done here.”
“Still as stubborn as ever,” Vaughn said with a laugh.
“I like to think of it as determination,” she replied.
Vaughn looked at Sark for the first time. After a minute of sizing up, he held out his hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“Most of the world may think I’m a complete ***hole, but I do have moments of emotional weakness.”
Vaughn cracked a small smile as he heard Lauren and Sydney begin to giggle softly. “Get in, you two. We’re meeting the others at the offices in about half an hour. Marshall has been driving us crazy since he found out that you were coming in.”
“As long as he doesn’t write me another poem…”
The drive to the CIA headquarters was filled with silence, but it was a surprisingly comfortable silence. As soon as they reached the parking garage, the severity of the situation hit Sydney, and she reached out for Sark’s hand.
“It will be all right,” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded and followed Vaughn and Lauren as they led the way into the complex. Nothing had changed all that much. There was a new paint color in the hallway, and lots of the people walking around weren’t familiar faces. In general, it was the same, though.
Sydney caught sight of her father from across the room and dropped Sark’s hand to go to him. “Daddy!” she cried as she rushed into his arms.
It had been a good six months since Sydney had last seen her father. Being on different halves of the country and the fact that Jack Bristow was still a CIA spy didn’t make contact easy. However, a Bristow was never one to hide from a little glitch in the plan. She and her father kept in contact every day unless he was on a mission.
“Sydney. It’s good to see you,” Jack said as he released her from the hug.
“It’s nice to see you, too.” Sydney was about to fill him on what was new with her when she felt someone try to tackle her from behind. Laughing, she turned around. “It’s nice to see you, too, Marshall.”
“You were always my favorite agent,” Marshall said, taking a step back. “If there were Sydney Bristow action figures and Pez dispensers, I would have them all. I would be a Sydney Bristow paraphernalia conisuer.”
“Thank you, Marshall.” Sydney looked around at the mass of people staring at her. “Why is everyone staring at me?”
“Because you’re a bit of a legend around these parts,” said a deep voice behind her.
“Dixon!” she cried as she went for her third hug of the hour.
“Hi, Syd.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Don’t you dare even try to start apologizing for what happened between us.”
“I never got to explain why I let you go. Syd, I thought it was what you wanted. For so many years that we worked together, all you talked about was having a normal life. I never realized that that had changed.”
“Not too much,” she said, looking over at where Sark was standing talking to Marshall. Marshall looked so nervous she wanted to go over there and assure him that Sark would not be killing anyone that day.
“The Agency misses you.”
“I’m not coming back to this life. It’s taken too much time away from me already.” Sydney stepped back and her face visibly paled.
“What’s wrong?” Sark asked, shifting into his concerned mode.
“I think that the airplane ride upset the Poptart I had for breakfast.” Sydney put her hand over her mouth and rushed away, presumably to the bathroom.
Sark bit his lip and looked around as everyone shuffled back and forth nervously. “So, this is what this place looks like on the other half of the prison cell. I always wondered when I was here.”
Lauren cracked a little smile at that comment. Vaughn let out a small laugh. “I honestly never thought you’d have the opportunity to see this,” he said.
“Me, either,” Sark agreed. He looked around again and nodded. “It’s nice. Kind of homey compared to the other organization headquarters I’ve seen.”
“We just got them to repaint the walls a more soothing color,” Marshall said. “The old maroon-brown color was making everyone a little angry. Or so say the psychological tests. You see, colors can influence people’s feelings unintentionally. It’s all about subtlety.”
“Interesting,” Sark said. “I’ll have to look into that.”
“Sorry about that,” Sydney said as she returned to the group.
“Are you all right?” Sark asked. The second she had reappeared, he was at her side and holding her arm for support.
“I’m fine. I just got a little sick from all this anxiety and stress.” Sark nodded. “Okay, we should get down to business before I get sick again.”
Dixon nodded and motioned for the group huddled around Vaughn and Lauren to make their way to his office. “Tyler has been kidnapped by ex-Agents Weiss and Conway, you know that much. It’s imperative that we get him back.”
“I know that we’re all practically a family here, Dixon. But what makes Vaughn’s son so important?”
“To start, Tyler was adopted him when he was one year old. He is a product of a program set up by the Covenant to create future agents much in the way that Project Christmas was intended.”
“The child was one year old,” Sydney said as she sat down in one of the briefing room chairs. “How could he possibly have been programmed that early on?”
“The Covenant harvested genetic material from many of the top agents around the world in multiple organizations. They actually manufactured children.”
“Is that possible?” she asked.
“It is now,” Marshall said as he took a seat across from her. “You know that there have been large leaps of progress made in the area of cloning. The Covenant stole some classified technology from a base in Switzerland. It seems like they figured out how to splice DNA to create children who have the potential to grow up to be super weapons.”
“Our son is one of those super weapons, Sydney,” Lauren said.
Sydney nodded as she saw Sark take a seat next to her out of the corner of her eye. “Do you know who his biological parents are?”
“We believe that Tyler’s mother was Emma Wallace,” Vaughn said.
“The woman that the Jim Lennox double murdered in Berlin three years ago? How is that possible if she died?”
“It seems that this cloning operation has been the main goal of the Covenant since their forming. Emma Wallace died around the time that the Covenant was being formed,” Lauren supplied. “Enzo Markovic would have been one of the leaders of the Covenant as we know it today if Agent Lennox hadn’t shot him in Poland.”
“So, Emma Wallace lives on in our son,” Vaughn said. “We don’t know who his father is, but in all honesty, I think it’s me. DNA tests are inconclusive because of the nature of his conception.”
“Wouldn’t you have known if the Covenant got samples from you, Agent Vaughn?” Sark asked, speaking for the first time since they sat down in the briefing room.
“The Covenant could have gotten a hold of my DNA at any point in any mission I went on. They figured out a way to extract and manufacture full, live DNA from dead epidermal cells. Because we can’t tell for sure, I don’t want Tyler to treat me any differently than he would Lauren.”
Sydney nodded in understanding. “So, Weiss chose to kidnap your son because he has the potential to become a super weapon?”
“That’s how it appears, Sydney,” Jack said. “We’ve tracked Weiss and Conway to Miami. It appears that is where they are holding your son. The specific location he has been at is either a large hotel in the Biscayne Bay area or an abandoned warehouse a few miles off.”
“What do you suggest?” Sydney asked him.
”I suggest that we raid the hotel as soon as possible. If he’s not there, we can easily shift to the warehouse. The longer we wait to act on intel we receive, the less of chance we have of finding them before they move on to a new location. So speed is of the utmost importance.”
“Sydney, we want you to go in alone to the hotel. Weiss will not be expecting you so the guards won’t be familiar with your face.” Dixon slid a file folder over to Sydney.
“Unacceptable,” Sark said as he put his hand on the folder to prevent Sydney from picking it up.
“And why is that, Mr. Sark?” Dixon asked.
“She’s not going in to Miami alone. I’m going with her, and there’s no discussion about that.”
Sydney put her hand on Sark’s. “There shouldn’t be a problem with that. You said you wanted to send me in because no one will be expecting me. I’m sure they don’t expect Sark to show up.”
“Fine,” Dixon said. “Sydney and Sark, you’ll go in. Vaughn and Lauren will run the op from Miami, and be there in case you need backup. The rest of us will monitor you from here.”
They all nodded in agreement and stood up to leave.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Sark said to Sydney quietly.
“Can I speak to you, Mr. Sark?” Jack asked.
Sydney smiled at him weakly and left him alone with her father in the briefing room.
“Say whatever you need to, Jack.”
“I just want to remind you that I’m watching you and my daughter. I’ve come to respect you, but your former employee has made it extremely hard for me to trust anyone. So I don’t quite trust you with my daughter yet.”
Sark almost wanted to laugh at Jack’s subtle reference to the connection between Irina and him. “Understood.”
“But what you did, insisting that Sydney not be alone, that wins you a few extra points with me. Take care of my daughter when you’re in Miami.”
“I will,” Sark promised and turned to leave.
“Wait. Sydney told me about your proposal.”
Sark stopped dead in his tracks. He thought they had agreed that they weren’t going to keep secrets from one another, and here she went and told Jack about their engagement without informing him. It would have been so much easier if he had time to prepare for this conversation. He turned to look at Jack. “I love your daughter, sir. That’s never going to change.”
“That’s a start. I just want you to know that all those threats I’ve made to you over the past two years about the consequences of hurting my daughter just became twice as harsh. I don’t really believe in the sanctity of marriage anymore since Irina. So, I’m not going to ease off just because you put a ring on her finger.”
”Understood,” Sark said for a second time.
“Good.” Jack walked past Sark on his way out of the room. At the door, he turned around and said somberly, “Welcome to the family.”
Sark let out a big breath as the door shut behind Jack. “That could have gone a lot worse,” he muttered. He looked through the glass window at where Sydney was talking to Marshall. “But for her, it’s worth it.”
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
While Sark was inside the briefing room trying to keep Jack from killing him, Sydney found herself outside with her ex-lover and his wife. The tension between the three of them when they were in the same room was a little toned done but still present.
“So,” Sydney said, turning to face Lauren, “I think I need to know a little more about what the CIA has on Weiss. Why would he do something like this?”
“For starters, you should probably know just how bad Weiss infiltrated this organization. He had been reporting to the Covenant for months before you received that intel on him.”
“From Sark,” Sydney pointed out. She didn’t want anyone to forget his part in pointing out the mole. It would be good if she could get everyone to focus on the things he’s done to help them succeed rather than his past indiscretions.
Lauren nodded. “Eric had tried on numerous occasions to get some of our best agents killed, including you, Sydney.”
“I interrogated him a little when we first brought him into custody. All he would say to me was to tell you that he was sorry and you were the only one he had problems betraying,” Vaughn said.
“How convenient. He had troubling betraying me, and look. Here I am, the one who’s going to take him done. That’s irony.”
“What we didn’t realize at the time,” Lauren said continuing her explanation, “was that Weiss wasn’t just your ordinary mole for an enemy organization. The intel he fed them was so good that he started moving on up on the chain of command. He began to go on missions for them when the Agency thought he had a day off or was researching a future mission for us.”
“He was a full-on double agent,” Vaughn added. “Now Eric’s one of the top men in the Covenant.”
“Okay. I’ve got enough of the back story. But how could he kidnap your son, Vaughn? I didn’t think he was faking your whole friendship. You two used to be so close.”
“We started drifting apart, Sydney. About the time that you came into my life. You took over all my thoughts and actions. There just wasn’t any room to make sure that Eric was content with his life. I partially blame myself for his defection. I shouldn’t have ignored him so much.” Lauren put her hand on her husband’s shoulder to calm him. It was an unconscious gesture, but Sydney noticed it at once. Vaughn really was happy in his marriage. That was plain for anyone to see.
She turned as she heard her father coming out of the debriefing room and saw the determined look on his face. “Uh oh,” she murmured to Lauren and Vaughn. “I think I need to go check on Sark. My father looks like he gave him ‘the talk’”.
Sydney walked over just as Sark was emerging from the debriefing room. “So, how did that go? Still alive?”
He gave her a reassuring smirk. “I think you were right. Your father likes me. You know how I know that?”
“How?” she said with a smile, settling herself into his arms.
“Because I’m still alive.”
She smiled into his chest and just sat for a moment in silence. In the coming days, she knew there probably wouldn’t be much time of this. Her normal life was on hold for a few days and moments with Sark would be few and far between.
Sydney fiddled with a straw wrapper she had had in her hands for the majority of the flight. She couldn’t believe she was actually returning to Los Angeles.
Sark reached across the aisle to grab her hand gently with his. “You don’t have to be nervous, Sydney. The people we’re going to love you just as much as they did before. Nothing has changed.”
“Something has changed,” she said, looking at him seriously. “You’re a part of my life now. You’re all of my life now. They’ve had time to adjust to that fact, but none of them, except my father, have actually seen the two of us together. They might decide it’s better if we return to New York.”
“The objective is bigger than any of their personal feelings, Sydney.”
She jumped slightly as the landing gear hit runway cement. They were here.
After about ten minutes of taxiing, the plane came to a complete stop and its passengers stood up to exit the plane. Sark gave her one more smile before they walked out into the harsh, smoggy air of L.A. Vaughn was standing next to an SUV with his wife.
Sydney hesitantly held up her hand in a wave and was happy to see Vaughn smiling back at her. “Maybe we can return to normal,” she let herself believe as she walked towards him.
“Vaughn. Lauren. I’m so sorry.”
“We’ll get through it,” Lauren said. “Thank you so much for answering Michael’s call. I had my doubts.”
“Neither one of us were sure that you would give up your normal life to help two people who almost ruined your life.”
“Number one, you did not ruin my life. In fact, what you did to me was more of a favor.” She glanced at the man beside her, thinking of how happy she was that he was in her life. “And number two, I fully intend to return to that normal life when we’re done here.”
“Still as stubborn as ever,” Vaughn said with a laugh.
“I like to think of it as determination,” she replied.
Vaughn looked at Sark for the first time. After a minute of sizing up, he held out his hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“Most of the world may think I’m a complete ***hole, but I do have moments of emotional weakness.”
Vaughn cracked a small smile as he heard Lauren and Sydney begin to giggle softly. “Get in, you two. We’re meeting the others at the offices in about half an hour. Marshall has been driving us crazy since he found out that you were coming in.”
“As long as he doesn’t write me another poem…”
The drive to the CIA headquarters was filled with silence, but it was a surprisingly comfortable silence. As soon as they reached the parking garage, the severity of the situation hit Sydney, and she reached out for Sark’s hand.
“It will be all right,” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded and followed Vaughn and Lauren as they led the way into the complex. Nothing had changed all that much. There was a new paint color in the hallway, and lots of the people walking around weren’t familiar faces. In general, it was the same, though.
Sydney caught sight of her father from across the room and dropped Sark’s hand to go to him. “Daddy!” she cried as she rushed into his arms.
It had been a good six months since Sydney had last seen her father. Being on different halves of the country and the fact that Jack Bristow was still a CIA spy didn’t make contact easy. However, a Bristow was never one to hide from a little glitch in the plan. She and her father kept in contact every day unless he was on a mission.
“Sydney. It’s good to see you,” Jack said as he released her from the hug.
“It’s nice to see you, too.” Sydney was about to fill him on what was new with her when she felt someone try to tackle her from behind. Laughing, she turned around. “It’s nice to see you, too, Marshall.”
“You were always my favorite agent,” Marshall said, taking a step back. “If there were Sydney Bristow action figures and Pez dispensers, I would have them all. I would be a Sydney Bristow paraphernalia conisuer.”
“Thank you, Marshall.” Sydney looked around at the mass of people staring at her. “Why is everyone staring at me?”
“Because you’re a bit of a legend around these parts,” said a deep voice behind her.
“Dixon!” she cried as she went for her third hug of the hour.
“Hi, Syd.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Don’t you dare even try to start apologizing for what happened between us.”
“I never got to explain why I let you go. Syd, I thought it was what you wanted. For so many years that we worked together, all you talked about was having a normal life. I never realized that that had changed.”
“Not too much,” she said, looking over at where Sark was standing talking to Marshall. Marshall looked so nervous she wanted to go over there and assure him that Sark would not be killing anyone that day.
“The Agency misses you.”
“I’m not coming back to this life. It’s taken too much time away from me already.” Sydney stepped back and her face visibly paled.
“What’s wrong?” Sark asked, shifting into his concerned mode.
“I think that the airplane ride upset the Poptart I had for breakfast.” Sydney put her hand over her mouth and rushed away, presumably to the bathroom.
Sark bit his lip and looked around as everyone shuffled back and forth nervously. “So, this is what this place looks like on the other half of the prison cell. I always wondered when I was here.”
Lauren cracked a little smile at that comment. Vaughn let out a small laugh. “I honestly never thought you’d have the opportunity to see this,” he said.
“Me, either,” Sark agreed. He looked around again and nodded. “It’s nice. Kind of homey compared to the other organization headquarters I’ve seen.”
“We just got them to repaint the walls a more soothing color,” Marshall said. “The old maroon-brown color was making everyone a little angry. Or so say the psychological tests. You see, colors can influence people’s feelings unintentionally. It’s all about subtlety.”
“Interesting,” Sark said. “I’ll have to look into that.”
“Sorry about that,” Sydney said as she returned to the group.
“Are you all right?” Sark asked. The second she had reappeared, he was at her side and holding her arm for support.
“I’m fine. I just got a little sick from all this anxiety and stress.” Sark nodded. “Okay, we should get down to business before I get sick again.”
Dixon nodded and motioned for the group huddled around Vaughn and Lauren to make their way to his office. “Tyler has been kidnapped by ex-Agents Weiss and Conway, you know that much. It’s imperative that we get him back.”
“I know that we’re all practically a family here, Dixon. But what makes Vaughn’s son so important?”
“To start, Tyler was adopted him when he was one year old. He is a product of a program set up by the Covenant to create future agents much in the way that Project Christmas was intended.”
“The child was one year old,” Sydney said as she sat down in one of the briefing room chairs. “How could he possibly have been programmed that early on?”
“The Covenant harvested genetic material from many of the top agents around the world in multiple organizations. They actually manufactured children.”
“Is that possible?” she asked.
“It is now,” Marshall said as he took a seat across from her. “You know that there have been large leaps of progress made in the area of cloning. The Covenant stole some classified technology from a base in Switzerland. It seems like they figured out how to splice DNA to create children who have the potential to grow up to be super weapons.”
“Our son is one of those super weapons, Sydney,” Lauren said.
Sydney nodded as she saw Sark take a seat next to her out of the corner of her eye. “Do you know who his biological parents are?”
“We believe that Tyler’s mother was Emma Wallace,” Vaughn said.
“The woman that the Jim Lennox double murdered in Berlin three years ago? How is that possible if she died?”
“It seems that this cloning operation has been the main goal of the Covenant since their forming. Emma Wallace died around the time that the Covenant was being formed,” Lauren supplied. “Enzo Markovic would have been one of the leaders of the Covenant as we know it today if Agent Lennox hadn’t shot him in Poland.”
“So, Emma Wallace lives on in our son,” Vaughn said. “We don’t know who his father is, but in all honesty, I think it’s me. DNA tests are inconclusive because of the nature of his conception.”
“Wouldn’t you have known if the Covenant got samples from you, Agent Vaughn?” Sark asked, speaking for the first time since they sat down in the briefing room.
“The Covenant could have gotten a hold of my DNA at any point in any mission I went on. They figured out a way to extract and manufacture full, live DNA from dead epidermal cells. Because we can’t tell for sure, I don’t want Tyler to treat me any differently than he would Lauren.”
Sydney nodded in understanding. “So, Weiss chose to kidnap your son because he has the potential to become a super weapon?”
“That’s how it appears, Sydney,” Jack said. “We’ve tracked Weiss and Conway to Miami. It appears that is where they are holding your son. The specific location he has been at is either a large hotel in the Biscayne Bay area or an abandoned warehouse a few miles off.”
“What do you suggest?” Sydney asked him.
”I suggest that we raid the hotel as soon as possible. If he’s not there, we can easily shift to the warehouse. The longer we wait to act on intel we receive, the less of chance we have of finding them before they move on to a new location. So speed is of the utmost importance.”
“Sydney, we want you to go in alone to the hotel. Weiss will not be expecting you so the guards won’t be familiar with your face.” Dixon slid a file folder over to Sydney.
“Unacceptable,” Sark said as he put his hand on the folder to prevent Sydney from picking it up.
“And why is that, Mr. Sark?” Dixon asked.
“She’s not going in to Miami alone. I’m going with her, and there’s no discussion about that.”
Sydney put her hand on Sark’s. “There shouldn’t be a problem with that. You said you wanted to send me in because no one will be expecting me. I’m sure they don’t expect Sark to show up.”
“Fine,” Dixon said. “Sydney and Sark, you’ll go in. Vaughn and Lauren will run the op from Miami, and be there in case you need backup. The rest of us will monitor you from here.”
They all nodded in agreement and stood up to leave.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Sark said to Sydney quietly.
“Can I speak to you, Mr. Sark?” Jack asked.
Sydney smiled at him weakly and left him alone with her father in the briefing room.
“Say whatever you need to, Jack.”
“I just want to remind you that I’m watching you and my daughter. I’ve come to respect you, but your former employee has made it extremely hard for me to trust anyone. So I don’t quite trust you with my daughter yet.”
Sark almost wanted to laugh at Jack’s subtle reference to the connection between Irina and him. “Understood.”
“But what you did, insisting that Sydney not be alone, that wins you a few extra points with me. Take care of my daughter when you’re in Miami.”
“I will,” Sark promised and turned to leave.
“Wait. Sydney told me about your proposal.”
Sark stopped dead in his tracks. He thought they had agreed that they weren’t going to keep secrets from one another, and here she went and told Jack about their engagement without informing him. It would have been so much easier if he had time to prepare for this conversation. He turned to look at Jack. “I love your daughter, sir. That’s never going to change.”
“That’s a start. I just want you to know that all those threats I’ve made to you over the past two years about the consequences of hurting my daughter just became twice as harsh. I don’t really believe in the sanctity of marriage anymore since Irina. So, I’m not going to ease off just because you put a ring on her finger.”
”Understood,” Sark said for a second time.
“Good.” Jack walked past Sark on his way out of the room. At the door, he turned around and said somberly, “Welcome to the family.”
Sark let out a big breath as the door shut behind Jack. “That could have gone a lot worse,” he muttered. He looked through the glass window at where Sydney was talking to Marshall. “But for her, it’s worth it.”
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
While Sark was inside the briefing room trying to keep Jack from killing him, Sydney found herself outside with her ex-lover and his wife. The tension between the three of them when they were in the same room was a little toned done but still present.
“So,” Sydney said, turning to face Lauren, “I think I need to know a little more about what the CIA has on Weiss. Why would he do something like this?”
“For starters, you should probably know just how bad Weiss infiltrated this organization. He had been reporting to the Covenant for months before you received that intel on him.”
“From Sark,” Sydney pointed out. She didn’t want anyone to forget his part in pointing out the mole. It would be good if she could get everyone to focus on the things he’s done to help them succeed rather than his past indiscretions.
Lauren nodded. “Eric had tried on numerous occasions to get some of our best agents killed, including you, Sydney.”
“I interrogated him a little when we first brought him into custody. All he would say to me was to tell you that he was sorry and you were the only one he had problems betraying,” Vaughn said.
“How convenient. He had troubling betraying me, and look. Here I am, the one who’s going to take him done. That’s irony.”
“What we didn’t realize at the time,” Lauren said continuing her explanation, “was that Weiss wasn’t just your ordinary mole for an enemy organization. The intel he fed them was so good that he started moving on up on the chain of command. He began to go on missions for them when the Agency thought he had a day off or was researching a future mission for us.”
“He was a full-on double agent,” Vaughn added. “Now Eric’s one of the top men in the Covenant.”
“Okay. I’ve got enough of the back story. But how could he kidnap your son, Vaughn? I didn’t think he was faking your whole friendship. You two used to be so close.”
“We started drifting apart, Sydney. About the time that you came into my life. You took over all my thoughts and actions. There just wasn’t any room to make sure that Eric was content with his life. I partially blame myself for his defection. I shouldn’t have ignored him so much.” Lauren put her hand on her husband’s shoulder to calm him. It was an unconscious gesture, but Sydney noticed it at once. Vaughn really was happy in his marriage. That was plain for anyone to see.
She turned as she heard her father coming out of the debriefing room and saw the determined look on his face. “Uh oh,” she murmured to Lauren and Vaughn. “I think I need to go check on Sark. My father looks like he gave him ‘the talk’”.
Sydney walked over just as Sark was emerging from the debriefing room. “So, how did that go? Still alive?”
He gave her a reassuring smirk. “I think you were right. Your father likes me. You know how I know that?”
“How?” she said with a smile, settling herself into his arms.
“Because I’m still alive.”
She smiled into his chest and just sat for a moment in silence. In the coming days, she knew there probably wouldn’t be much time of this. Her normal life was on hold for a few days and moments with Sark would be few and far between.
Oh wow! Its another fantastic update! I'm loving how quickly these are coming!
I remembered that Weiss was evil from Dare You to Move, I just never voiced my surprise at that to begin with. When I first read it, I was shocked
but I'm really enjoying it now in the sequel!
This was another great update!
onder: Or am I reading too much into that??
I love the way you wrote the Vaughn/Lauren relationship (even though I'm not usually a Lauren fan) and their interactions with Sydney/Sark. It looks like they may be able to work well together. Which is good. They need to focus on getting the little boy.
Which brings me to my next point. The little boy! And the Covenant trying to make super spy babies! Poor kid! He's only a little kid, and already people are after him.
I'm intrigued with the whole Weiss/Stephanie conversation from the end of last chapter. They seem to know that Sydney is back in the game...yet the CIA is unaware of that. I wonder what bigger plans they have in storeonder:
I can't wait for the next update! Thanks for the PM! I'm so loving this story!
I remembered that Weiss was evil from Dare You to Move, I just never voiced my surprise at that to begin with. When I first read it, I was shocked
but I'm really enjoying it now in the sequel!This was another great update!
Methinks that something is up with Sydney besides stress?
onder: Or am I reading too much into that?? :lol: Hee hee. That was great!
I love the way you wrote the Vaughn/Lauren relationship (even though I'm not usually a Lauren fan) and their interactions with Sydney/Sark. It looks like they may be able to work well together. Which is good. They need to focus on getting the little boy.
Which brings me to my next point. The little boy! And the Covenant trying to make super spy babies! Poor kid! He's only a little kid, and already people are after him.
I'm intrigued with the whole Weiss/Stephanie conversation from the end of last chapter. They seem to know that Sydney is back in the game...yet the CIA is unaware of that. I wonder what bigger plans they have in store
onder:I can't wait for the next update! Thanks for the PM! I'm so loving this story!
Oh yay!! Another update - oh how I love reading Sarkney before bed ^_^
You've done a really good job making Lauren acceptable as Vaughn's loving (as far as we know) wife. I like how in their conversation with Sydney, there wasn't a lot of focus on past demons. Maybe that will come later, but if not - no skin off my back
I have to admit when I read about Tyler being Vaughn and Emma's - I was like When in the hell did Vaughn sleep with her?! but then *ohhhh* DNA stuff. Nice.
I can't wait until they got get Weiss and that wench Conway!! Thanks for the PM
Uh oh.... Hopefully it was the plane ride/anxiety that made that Pop Tart not set right.. Mmmm, Pop Tarts!
You've done a really good job making Lauren acceptable as Vaughn's loving (as far as we know) wife. I like how in their conversation with Sydney, there wasn't a lot of focus on past demons. Maybe that will come later, but if not - no skin off my back
I have to admit when I read about Tyler being Vaughn and Emma's - I was like When in the hell did Vaughn sleep with her?! but then *ohhhh* DNA stuff. Nice.
I can't wait until they got get Weiss and that wench Conway!! Thanks for the PM
Great chapter!!! Is something up with Syd other than bad plane food?? just guessing. Can't wait to see what happnes!
thanks for the pm!
thanks for the pm!
vartan-lova
Cadet
great chapter!! i still wish weiss wasnt evil. oh well. update soon!!
oh well. update soon!!Sydney Bristow 2300844
Cadet
thanks for the update!
and the pm
update soon!
and the pm
update soon!
aliaslover777
Cadet
wow this fic is just so increadably well written!!!!!!!!!!!!
i loved "the talk" part
keep up the fabulous writing!!!!!!!!! and thanks for the pm!!!!!!!!!!
i loved "the talk" part
keep up the fabulous writing!!!!!!!!! and thanks for the pm!!!!!!!!!!
aliasluver47
Cadet
Awesome story!! ^_^ Please PM me when you update!
Alwazabrat
Cadet
That was great ... love the interaction between them all ... still cant belive that Weiss is evil ... anyway that was great ... thanks for the PM ... more soon please
aliasgirl89
Cadet
Nice twist with the Spy babies!
~ASH~
~ASH~
Alias Fan Gillian
Cadet
I just caught up. Great chapters.
Thanks for the pm.
Thanks for the pm.
krzykty57789
Cadet
I haven't read this, because I'm anti-Sarkney... but I just wanted to drop by and say how cool the title is... I realized this and the sequel both are songs from A Walk To Remember and Boy do I love that movie
kidblink83
Cadet
I apologize ahead of time if you don't get a PM from me on this update. My computer and all five of my roommates' computers aren't wanting to load AllAlias. So, I had to come to the library to post this. And unfortunately, I left my PM list at home. So I'm going to guess on a bunch of the PMs that I can remember... I'll e-mail myself who I PM'd so that I can fix this come tomorrow hopefully...
Chapter Five
Miami was always a place Sark had planned on taking Sydney. Like most of the other hot spots in the world, he knew she had been there and never really experienced. He had planned on taking her down to Miami around Mardi Gras time so they could fly over to New Orleans. But it looks like she was just destined to keep visiting this sexy city without having enough time for him to show her just how sexy it could be. And he had wanted to change that so bad.
He felt Sydney shift next to him in their car. Her hair lightly fell against his shoulder, and he couldn’t fight the urge to smell it. She always smelled like mangos and sandalwood. It was the strangest, most exhilarating combination. But what was even stranger was what those two smells could do to him now when he smelled them randomly somewhere. He was always thrown completely off his game just by the presence of mangoes. It was rather humorous.
“Would you stop sniffing me?” Sydney said without taking her eyes away from the passing scenery. “I told you that it creeps me out.”
“It does not,” he protested, fingering her hair lightly.
Sydney turned and smiled at him. “Are we clear on what’s going to happen?”
“You and I are going to go in there and get Vaughn’s son. What else do I need to know?”
“I would appreciate if you would take this seriously. These people might mean nothing to you, but they were once my whole world.”
“I know,” Sark said. “I’m sorry. It’s just a little hard. Sometimes I feel I’m still in competition with Michael Vaughn.”
“Well, if it’s a competition, I think you’re winning.” Sydney planted a light kiss on his lips as the car rolled to a stop.
“Men like me don’t lose.” He followed her out of the car. Switching into undercover mode, he said to Sydney in a heavy Louisiana accent, “This place is just as beautiful as Todd told us.”
She answered back in an equally heavy accent. “The Biscayne Bay area is fantastic. We really need to buy a summer home here.”
“But you already have one in the Hamptons,” he answered as they both ignored the doorman who opened the hotel door for them.
Vaughn had told her that they would be checking in as Remy and Laura Charneau. Once being shown to their room, they would quickly make their way to Room 1547 where Tyler was suspected of being held. If he was there, the mission was simple. Get him out of the building before anyone realized what was happening. If he wasn’t in the room, they were to leave the hotel on the pretext of wanting dinner on the town and would meet up with the others as soon as possible to plan the next move.
Sydney let Sark take control as they checked in. Most people didn’t look twice at a man checking into a fancy hotel. But if she had done it, all eyes would have been on her. “All eyes are on me,” she said to herself. For once, she wasn’t wearing an impossibly revealing dress and people were still staring at her.
“I told you that no matter what you do, people will stare at you, chere,” Sark said in his Cajun accent. “You’re the most beautiful belle at the ball.”
“You spoil me, Remy,” she said playfully smacking his arm. His words melted her heart, though. Even if it was in the context of an alias, she knew that was really what he truly thought.
Sark smiled at her as he signed the credit card slip. A bell boy came around to show them to their room almost immediately. They followed in silence into the elevator and all the way up to the tenth floor.
“This is paradise,” Sydney said, half-acting and half saying exactly what she was thinking. A lot of her hotel rooms when she was working under SD-6 had been nice, but this took the cake.
“Only the best for my petite,” Sark said. He tipped the bell boy and motioned for the man to leave. “Now, let’s see about breaking in this room.”
Sydney saw the bell boy chuckle out of the corner of her eye as he shut the door. “Very funny, Sark. That man is going to think that we’re a couple of horny teenagers with your little sexual reference.”
“Who said we aren’t?” He came up behind her and kissed the back of her neck.
“You were serious, weren’t you?”
“No one will notice if we’re a few minutes behind on our schedule.”
Sydney turned around to face her fiancé. “You and I both know that if we started this, it would take a lot longer than a few minutes to finish it.”
“True.” He let go of her waist and walked over to where their baggage was sitting. After a minute of rifling through one bag, he tossed an earpiece to Sydney. “Call Vaughn and let him know we’re in.”
She nodded and positioned the earpiece in her ear. “Vaughn, do you copy?”
“I’m right here, Syd,” came the voice back into her ear.
“Great. Sark and I are in. We’re going to wait for a few minutes before exiting the room to look for your son to stay inconspicuous.”
“So then you have a few moments to talk?”
“Yes, I do. But I really don’t think this is the appropriate time for us to have a quaint, little chat. I’m trying to rescue your son from his kidnappers.” She looked over at Sark. He had pulled his laptop out of one of the suitcases and was steadily typing away at it. She had come to realize over the years that he used that thing for almost everything. Obviously everything included saving the kidnapped son of her ex-boyfriend.
“I know, Syd. It’s just that I've wanted to ask you something since this morning.”
“Ask away,” she said while she continued to stare at Sark. He really was engrossed in whatever was on the laptop screen.
After hesitating a moment, he asked, “When were you planning on telling me that you were engaged to Sark?”
Tearing herself away from staring at her boyfriend, Sydney opened the door and walked out onto the balcony to give herself a little more privacy. “Do you think this is the right time or place to be talking about this?”
“Yes. I do,” he said through his teeth.
“I’m sorry for not telling you right away, but it’s not the kind of thing you blurt out. ‘Hey! Do you remember the man that you and I thought we would hate forever and dreamed about killing? Well, guess what. Turns out he’s the love of my life and I’m planning on marrying him’.”
“Sarcasm noted.”
“Plus, I was worried that it might hurt you. The only people who know about it are the two of us and my father. To be honest, I was scared that it might hurt just about everyone I know. But that was never going to stop me from doing what I wanted.”
“That’s what makes you you,” Vaughn said. “So you really love this man?”
”With all my heart.”
“All right. I just need to make sure that was the way you felt. I worry about some of the decisions you’ve made, Syd. You know that. I might have been out of your life for a few years now, but I didn’t stop thinking of you. And over the years we haven’t been talking, I’ve come to accept that Sark must not be a completely heartless prick. I guess if you give me time, I can adjust to this new, more permanent development.”
“Good,” Sydney said. She saw Sark motioning at her through the glass door to come back inside. “Well, it looks like we’re good to go. I’m going to have to go radio silent for a while. Me talking to thin air may rouse a little too much suspicion.”
“Bring me my son, Sydney.”
“I will.”
She heard the beep as Vaughn severed their link. In the back of her head, there was a nagging voice warning her that she might not be good enough for this. Saving Tyler Vaughn was probably the biggest assignment she’d ever had, in an official or unofficial capacity. “Can I really do this?” she wondered. Pushing that thought away, she went back inside the hotel room.
Sark was standing in the open doorway, waiting for her to join him. “What was that private conversation all about?” he asked, slipping back into his Cajun accent.
“An old boyfriend found out about this here ring on my finger. Seems he wasn’t too pleased that I hadn’t informed him.” She hoped that he could sort through the sub context to get what she was really trying to say.
“And how did he take the news that you’re off the market?”
“Surprisingly well.” Sydney held up her hand to signal Sark to pause in their cover-up conversation and scanned the hallway. It was time to slip out of their aliases and into spy mode.
They made their way stealthily to the stairwell and climbed the five flights of stairs to the fifteenth floor. It wasn’t that hard to find room 1547. This added to a list of reasons Sydney was compiling about how this whole mission was turning out to be way too easy. They included the fact that this hotel was in an extremely high-traffic area and the lack of trouble checking in under their aliases. But those weren’t even the cause of the major alarm going off in her head.
“Did you notice that there are not guards stationed outside the door?” she said as she pulled out her lock pick set.
“Yes. It didn’t escape my attention. I don’t think Tyler is going to be in that room. This has been too easy to actually be the place.”
Sydney was about to respond when the lock made a satisfying click. The door swung open to reveal a young boy sitting on the hotel room bed. The little boy looked so much like his father that it threw both of them off for a moment.
“Tyler?” Sydney asked as she went to step into the room.
Sark held out his hand to stop her. “This is too easy. There must be an alarm trigger or something in our pathway.”
Sydney nodded and turned her attention back to Tyler. “Tyler, your mommy and daddy sent us to get you. My name’s Sydney. I need you to stay right there, and my friend and I will come get you in a minute.”
“Nuh-uh,” the young boy said, shaking his head. “Liar.”
“We’re not lying to you, kid,” Sark said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scanner that would serve to detect any frequency changes that an alarm trigger would give off.
The young boy looked at them with a smile. “The man said that you would come get me.”
“What man?” Sydney asked. Who could have possibly known that Vaughn was going to recruit her to help with this rescue?
“Dunno. He said that when you came I would get to go home to Mommy and Daddy.”
“That’s right.” Sydney smiled at the innocent young boy who was so diligently sitting on the bed.
“We can go in, Syd. There are no alarm triggers in the doorway.”
Sydney smiled and stepped into the room. Indeed, no alarms went off. “Why don’t you come here, Tyler?” She held out her hands to him.
The young boy got up, but instead of walking towards the two of them, he walked around to the other side of the bed.
“What are you doing?” Sark said as he began to make his way over to where the boy was standing.
“The man said I just had to push the button when you come here and then I could go home.”
Sydney realized what was happening two seconds before the alarms started going off. There was no time to warn anyone. The man Tyler was referring to had obviously been Weiss. He must have planted a manually activated alarm trigger next to the bed and instructed Tyler to push it.
They went right into action as soon as the sirens started wailing. Sark grabbed the device and realized there was no way to turn the alarm off from there. Sydney picked Tyler up into her arms. Together, they raced out of the hotel room and down the hallway.
They made it halfway to the stairwell before they could feel and hear bullets whizzing past their heads. Sydney ducked into the nearest doorway and tried to shield Tyler from harm. She watched as Sark drew two guns out of his coat pocket and began firing down the hallway.
“There’s too many of them,” Sydney screamed over the gunshots.
Sark paused in his shooting to kick in the room door that Sydney was leaning on. “Get in!” he yelled.
“What are we doing?” she said as he shut the door behind them.
“We’re taking an alternate route down.” He nodded towards the balcony.
“What are you thinking?” she asked as they walked over to the balcony doors and Sark slid them open.
“We just need to climb down one story. The people chasing us won’t know how far down we’ve gone.”
“Sark, they know I have Tyler. It’s obvious that we can’t travel far with him.”
Sark pretended not to hear her as he quickly set up the rope and pulley system that was in the belt she was wearing. Hooking her in, he gave her a reassuring smile before helping her over the railing. “We’re going to go for a little ride now, Tyler,” Sark said to the young boy.
“Daddy?” Tyler asked.
“Your daddy is going to be waiting for you outside the building. We’ll be there soon.” Sydney took one last look at Sark before she began to lower herself down.
It seemed like forever before Sark felt the line go slack and then he heard the hand brake being flung back up towards him. He caught it and quickly hooked it onto the waistline of his pants. It slightly unnerved him that Sydney hadn’t said a word since she reached the balcony below, but he knew that he didn’t really have time to worry. He had to focus on sliding down the line to the balcony below.
Hitting the cement floor of the balcony, he immediately saw the reason that Sydney hadn’t called up to him.
“Hello, Mr. Sark. I didn’t expect to see you here,” Weiss said. Sydney was sitting on the bed with Tyler in her arms. And Weiss was holding a gun to her head. “I thought that our little Sydney would be coming here alone.”
Sark slipped immediately into his hardened spy mode and pointed both of his guns at Weiss. “You obviously are behind on your gossip. Sydney and I don’t do anything without each other these days. She’s my partner.”
“The CIA didn’t keep me too informed when I was in a prison cell. But you would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Sark? I mean, you did spend a good chunk of time in what I think was the neighboring cell to mine.”
Sark let Weiss babble on. In his head he was doing his best to formulate a plan of action. He didn’t care what happened to him. He just knew that he had to get Sydney and Tyler out of this room and fast.
“Don’t make any sudden moves,” said a female voice from behind Sark. Sark immediately pointed one of his guns at the woman behind him and kept the other trained on Weiss still.
Weiss smirked. “You didn’t think I’d actually show my face without back-up. Sydney, I do believe you two have already met. But Sark, you haven’t met my partner. Stephanie Conway, this is the infamous Sark.”
“He doesn’t look too tough.”
“I’m a hell of a lot tougher than that pansy,” Sark said, nodding in Weiss’s direction.
“Don’t tempt me to shoot you,” she hissed back.
“Shooting him is not something you want to do,” Sydney threatened from the bed. “Trust me.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Weiss said. He still had his gun trained on Sydney and Tyler. “I’ve seen her mad, and it’s not a pretty sight.”
“Okay,” Sydney said, turning to face Weiss. She knew that she didn’t have to pay attention to Stephanie with Sark in the room. He could handle her completely while he also watched Sydney’s back. “Before we have this inevitable showdown, I want to know why you betrayed all your friends. What possessed you to do this?”
“It was pure and simple greed, Sydney,” Weiss said with an evil smile. “The CIA wasn’t giving me the recognition and respect I deserved. None of my so-called friends were giving me the respect I deserved. So I found somewhere where I could get that. The Covenant understands what an asset I am. They’re not all focused on you, Sydney.”
“I beg to differ,” Sark interrupted. “The Covenant stole two years of Sydney’s life. I think they may have been slightly interested in her.”
“Shut up before I shoot your little girlfriend,” Weiss said.
“Honey, I’m starting to get bored,” Stephanie whined.
“Let me fix that,” Sark said. He threw his guns up in the air and spun down onto the ground. Before anyone realized he had even moved, he had caught the guns out of the air and was firing one in Weiss’s direction while hitting Stephanie rather hard in the knee cap with the butt of the other.
She went down hard, and Weiss dove for cover. Sydney wasted no time in reacting and was already half way out the door.
“Go ahead,” Sark yelled to her. “I’ll catch up once I’ve neutralized these two.”
She stopped in the doorway and turned back towards him. “I’m not leaving you alone with them.”
Sark punched Weiss hard in the stomach, and he doubled over in pain. “You have to go now, Syd.”
“I told you I’m not leaving.”
Sark saw Stephanie begin to revive herself on the other end of the room. “You are holding a small child that is apparently critical to the safety of this world. That kid is more important than either one of us.”
“You know something about this that I don’t,” she realized. “What the hell are you all hiding from me?”
“Just go. I’ll be fine, Syd.” He paused to fire a few rounds at Stephanie, causing her to duck for cover. “I’ve been in much worse situations than this with a hell of a lot less on my side. Go before you distract me too much, and I make a mistake. I can handle this and I promise I’ll be right behind you in a minute.”
Trusting in the faith that Sark had earned from her slowly through the past three years, she nodded and started to run down the hall. She could hear the sounds of gun shots and yelling begin to get softer as she worked her way farther away. It took so much effort for her not to start doubting him and turn back. As she walked, she kept expecting to hear Sark’s voice behind her, assuring her that he was just fine.
“I shouldn’t have left him,” she mumbled. “I have no idea what’s going on in there.”
When she did hear his voice finally, she almost stopped running. If her natural spy instincts hadn’t kicked in, she probably would have let herself turn around and go back to that hotel room, potentially sacrificing both her life and the life of Tyler Vaughn.
Because she didn’t hear Sark’s voice yelling confirmation that he was all right and there right behind her. What she heard was his voice screaming her name in pain.
She called up all her strength and kept running down the hall, knowing that he would be furious if she turned back. And he had promised her he would get out, so that means he will. When she reached the end, she allowed herself one last glance at the hotel room door, willing Sark to come stumbling out. That was the moment when an explosion rocked the hallway. It had come directly from Room 1547.
She stopped in her tracks to stare at the obliterated hallway. Not able to stop herself, she held Tyler close to her chest as she made her way back down the hall as calmly as she could. Squinting, she tried to see if there was any movement in the smoke-filled corridor ahead.
She could make out a few figures moving down the other end of the hallway, but she couldn’t decipher if one of them was Sark. There was too much smoke.
“Sydney! What the hell is going on?” Vaughn’s voice blared in her ear. He had overridden the radio silence.
“There was an explosion. Tyler and I are safe.”
She could tell that Vaughn had understood what she was telling him. “Sydney, you need to get out of there now. Please.”
She allowed herself a few more precious seconds of stupidity before gritting her teeth and starting to run down the hallway once more. She had to believe in her heart that he wasn’t stuck in the room when the explosion occurred, but her head kept telling her that she wasn’t that lucky a person.
Tears ran down her eyes as she entered the stairwell and began racing down the stairs. It was at that moment she realized that the spy life hadn’t changed at all.
It still could ruin her life.
Chapter Five
Miami was always a place Sark had planned on taking Sydney. Like most of the other hot spots in the world, he knew she had been there and never really experienced. He had planned on taking her down to Miami around Mardi Gras time so they could fly over to New Orleans. But it looks like she was just destined to keep visiting this sexy city without having enough time for him to show her just how sexy it could be. And he had wanted to change that so bad.
He felt Sydney shift next to him in their car. Her hair lightly fell against his shoulder, and he couldn’t fight the urge to smell it. She always smelled like mangos and sandalwood. It was the strangest, most exhilarating combination. But what was even stranger was what those two smells could do to him now when he smelled them randomly somewhere. He was always thrown completely off his game just by the presence of mangoes. It was rather humorous.
“Would you stop sniffing me?” Sydney said without taking her eyes away from the passing scenery. “I told you that it creeps me out.”
“It does not,” he protested, fingering her hair lightly.
Sydney turned and smiled at him. “Are we clear on what’s going to happen?”
“You and I are going to go in there and get Vaughn’s son. What else do I need to know?”
“I would appreciate if you would take this seriously. These people might mean nothing to you, but they were once my whole world.”
“I know,” Sark said. “I’m sorry. It’s just a little hard. Sometimes I feel I’m still in competition with Michael Vaughn.”
“Well, if it’s a competition, I think you’re winning.” Sydney planted a light kiss on his lips as the car rolled to a stop.
“Men like me don’t lose.” He followed her out of the car. Switching into undercover mode, he said to Sydney in a heavy Louisiana accent, “This place is just as beautiful as Todd told us.”
She answered back in an equally heavy accent. “The Biscayne Bay area is fantastic. We really need to buy a summer home here.”
“But you already have one in the Hamptons,” he answered as they both ignored the doorman who opened the hotel door for them.
Vaughn had told her that they would be checking in as Remy and Laura Charneau. Once being shown to their room, they would quickly make their way to Room 1547 where Tyler was suspected of being held. If he was there, the mission was simple. Get him out of the building before anyone realized what was happening. If he wasn’t in the room, they were to leave the hotel on the pretext of wanting dinner on the town and would meet up with the others as soon as possible to plan the next move.
Sydney let Sark take control as they checked in. Most people didn’t look twice at a man checking into a fancy hotel. But if she had done it, all eyes would have been on her. “All eyes are on me,” she said to herself. For once, she wasn’t wearing an impossibly revealing dress and people were still staring at her.
“I told you that no matter what you do, people will stare at you, chere,” Sark said in his Cajun accent. “You’re the most beautiful belle at the ball.”
“You spoil me, Remy,” she said playfully smacking his arm. His words melted her heart, though. Even if it was in the context of an alias, she knew that was really what he truly thought.
Sark smiled at her as he signed the credit card slip. A bell boy came around to show them to their room almost immediately. They followed in silence into the elevator and all the way up to the tenth floor.
“This is paradise,” Sydney said, half-acting and half saying exactly what she was thinking. A lot of her hotel rooms when she was working under SD-6 had been nice, but this took the cake.
“Only the best for my petite,” Sark said. He tipped the bell boy and motioned for the man to leave. “Now, let’s see about breaking in this room.”
Sydney saw the bell boy chuckle out of the corner of her eye as he shut the door. “Very funny, Sark. That man is going to think that we’re a couple of horny teenagers with your little sexual reference.”
“Who said we aren’t?” He came up behind her and kissed the back of her neck.
“You were serious, weren’t you?”
“No one will notice if we’re a few minutes behind on our schedule.”
Sydney turned around to face her fiancé. “You and I both know that if we started this, it would take a lot longer than a few minutes to finish it.”
“True.” He let go of her waist and walked over to where their baggage was sitting. After a minute of rifling through one bag, he tossed an earpiece to Sydney. “Call Vaughn and let him know we’re in.”
She nodded and positioned the earpiece in her ear. “Vaughn, do you copy?”
“I’m right here, Syd,” came the voice back into her ear.
“Great. Sark and I are in. We’re going to wait for a few minutes before exiting the room to look for your son to stay inconspicuous.”
“So then you have a few moments to talk?”
“Yes, I do. But I really don’t think this is the appropriate time for us to have a quaint, little chat. I’m trying to rescue your son from his kidnappers.” She looked over at Sark. He had pulled his laptop out of one of the suitcases and was steadily typing away at it. She had come to realize over the years that he used that thing for almost everything. Obviously everything included saving the kidnapped son of her ex-boyfriend.
“I know, Syd. It’s just that I've wanted to ask you something since this morning.”
“Ask away,” she said while she continued to stare at Sark. He really was engrossed in whatever was on the laptop screen.
After hesitating a moment, he asked, “When were you planning on telling me that you were engaged to Sark?”
Tearing herself away from staring at her boyfriend, Sydney opened the door and walked out onto the balcony to give herself a little more privacy. “Do you think this is the right time or place to be talking about this?”
“Yes. I do,” he said through his teeth.
“I’m sorry for not telling you right away, but it’s not the kind of thing you blurt out. ‘Hey! Do you remember the man that you and I thought we would hate forever and dreamed about killing? Well, guess what. Turns out he’s the love of my life and I’m planning on marrying him’.”
“Sarcasm noted.”
“Plus, I was worried that it might hurt you. The only people who know about it are the two of us and my father. To be honest, I was scared that it might hurt just about everyone I know. But that was never going to stop me from doing what I wanted.”
“That’s what makes you you,” Vaughn said. “So you really love this man?”
”With all my heart.”
“All right. I just need to make sure that was the way you felt. I worry about some of the decisions you’ve made, Syd. You know that. I might have been out of your life for a few years now, but I didn’t stop thinking of you. And over the years we haven’t been talking, I’ve come to accept that Sark must not be a completely heartless prick. I guess if you give me time, I can adjust to this new, more permanent development.”
“Good,” Sydney said. She saw Sark motioning at her through the glass door to come back inside. “Well, it looks like we’re good to go. I’m going to have to go radio silent for a while. Me talking to thin air may rouse a little too much suspicion.”
“Bring me my son, Sydney.”
“I will.”
She heard the beep as Vaughn severed their link. In the back of her head, there was a nagging voice warning her that she might not be good enough for this. Saving Tyler Vaughn was probably the biggest assignment she’d ever had, in an official or unofficial capacity. “Can I really do this?” she wondered. Pushing that thought away, she went back inside the hotel room.
Sark was standing in the open doorway, waiting for her to join him. “What was that private conversation all about?” he asked, slipping back into his Cajun accent.
“An old boyfriend found out about this here ring on my finger. Seems he wasn’t too pleased that I hadn’t informed him.” She hoped that he could sort through the sub context to get what she was really trying to say.
“And how did he take the news that you’re off the market?”
“Surprisingly well.” Sydney held up her hand to signal Sark to pause in their cover-up conversation and scanned the hallway. It was time to slip out of their aliases and into spy mode.
They made their way stealthily to the stairwell and climbed the five flights of stairs to the fifteenth floor. It wasn’t that hard to find room 1547. This added to a list of reasons Sydney was compiling about how this whole mission was turning out to be way too easy. They included the fact that this hotel was in an extremely high-traffic area and the lack of trouble checking in under their aliases. But those weren’t even the cause of the major alarm going off in her head.
“Did you notice that there are not guards stationed outside the door?” she said as she pulled out her lock pick set.
“Yes. It didn’t escape my attention. I don’t think Tyler is going to be in that room. This has been too easy to actually be the place.”
Sydney was about to respond when the lock made a satisfying click. The door swung open to reveal a young boy sitting on the hotel room bed. The little boy looked so much like his father that it threw both of them off for a moment.
“Tyler?” Sydney asked as she went to step into the room.
Sark held out his hand to stop her. “This is too easy. There must be an alarm trigger or something in our pathway.”
Sydney nodded and turned her attention back to Tyler. “Tyler, your mommy and daddy sent us to get you. My name’s Sydney. I need you to stay right there, and my friend and I will come get you in a minute.”
“Nuh-uh,” the young boy said, shaking his head. “Liar.”
“We’re not lying to you, kid,” Sark said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scanner that would serve to detect any frequency changes that an alarm trigger would give off.
The young boy looked at them with a smile. “The man said that you would come get me.”
“What man?” Sydney asked. Who could have possibly known that Vaughn was going to recruit her to help with this rescue?
“Dunno. He said that when you came I would get to go home to Mommy and Daddy.”
“That’s right.” Sydney smiled at the innocent young boy who was so diligently sitting on the bed.
“We can go in, Syd. There are no alarm triggers in the doorway.”
Sydney smiled and stepped into the room. Indeed, no alarms went off. “Why don’t you come here, Tyler?” She held out her hands to him.
The young boy got up, but instead of walking towards the two of them, he walked around to the other side of the bed.
“What are you doing?” Sark said as he began to make his way over to where the boy was standing.
“The man said I just had to push the button when you come here and then I could go home.”
Sydney realized what was happening two seconds before the alarms started going off. There was no time to warn anyone. The man Tyler was referring to had obviously been Weiss. He must have planted a manually activated alarm trigger next to the bed and instructed Tyler to push it.
They went right into action as soon as the sirens started wailing. Sark grabbed the device and realized there was no way to turn the alarm off from there. Sydney picked Tyler up into her arms. Together, they raced out of the hotel room and down the hallway.
They made it halfway to the stairwell before they could feel and hear bullets whizzing past their heads. Sydney ducked into the nearest doorway and tried to shield Tyler from harm. She watched as Sark drew two guns out of his coat pocket and began firing down the hallway.
“There’s too many of them,” Sydney screamed over the gunshots.
Sark paused in his shooting to kick in the room door that Sydney was leaning on. “Get in!” he yelled.
“What are we doing?” she said as he shut the door behind them.
“We’re taking an alternate route down.” He nodded towards the balcony.
“What are you thinking?” she asked as they walked over to the balcony doors and Sark slid them open.
“We just need to climb down one story. The people chasing us won’t know how far down we’ve gone.”
“Sark, they know I have Tyler. It’s obvious that we can’t travel far with him.”
Sark pretended not to hear her as he quickly set up the rope and pulley system that was in the belt she was wearing. Hooking her in, he gave her a reassuring smile before helping her over the railing. “We’re going to go for a little ride now, Tyler,” Sark said to the young boy.
“Daddy?” Tyler asked.
“Your daddy is going to be waiting for you outside the building. We’ll be there soon.” Sydney took one last look at Sark before she began to lower herself down.
It seemed like forever before Sark felt the line go slack and then he heard the hand brake being flung back up towards him. He caught it and quickly hooked it onto the waistline of his pants. It slightly unnerved him that Sydney hadn’t said a word since she reached the balcony below, but he knew that he didn’t really have time to worry. He had to focus on sliding down the line to the balcony below.
Hitting the cement floor of the balcony, he immediately saw the reason that Sydney hadn’t called up to him.
“Hello, Mr. Sark. I didn’t expect to see you here,” Weiss said. Sydney was sitting on the bed with Tyler in her arms. And Weiss was holding a gun to her head. “I thought that our little Sydney would be coming here alone.”
Sark slipped immediately into his hardened spy mode and pointed both of his guns at Weiss. “You obviously are behind on your gossip. Sydney and I don’t do anything without each other these days. She’s my partner.”
“The CIA didn’t keep me too informed when I was in a prison cell. But you would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Sark? I mean, you did spend a good chunk of time in what I think was the neighboring cell to mine.”
Sark let Weiss babble on. In his head he was doing his best to formulate a plan of action. He didn’t care what happened to him. He just knew that he had to get Sydney and Tyler out of this room and fast.
“Don’t make any sudden moves,” said a female voice from behind Sark. Sark immediately pointed one of his guns at the woman behind him and kept the other trained on Weiss still.
Weiss smirked. “You didn’t think I’d actually show my face without back-up. Sydney, I do believe you two have already met. But Sark, you haven’t met my partner. Stephanie Conway, this is the infamous Sark.”
“He doesn’t look too tough.”
“I’m a hell of a lot tougher than that pansy,” Sark said, nodding in Weiss’s direction.
“Don’t tempt me to shoot you,” she hissed back.
“Shooting him is not something you want to do,” Sydney threatened from the bed. “Trust me.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Weiss said. He still had his gun trained on Sydney and Tyler. “I’ve seen her mad, and it’s not a pretty sight.”
“Okay,” Sydney said, turning to face Weiss. She knew that she didn’t have to pay attention to Stephanie with Sark in the room. He could handle her completely while he also watched Sydney’s back. “Before we have this inevitable showdown, I want to know why you betrayed all your friends. What possessed you to do this?”
“It was pure and simple greed, Sydney,” Weiss said with an evil smile. “The CIA wasn’t giving me the recognition and respect I deserved. None of my so-called friends were giving me the respect I deserved. So I found somewhere where I could get that. The Covenant understands what an asset I am. They’re not all focused on you, Sydney.”
“I beg to differ,” Sark interrupted. “The Covenant stole two years of Sydney’s life. I think they may have been slightly interested in her.”
“Shut up before I shoot your little girlfriend,” Weiss said.
“Honey, I’m starting to get bored,” Stephanie whined.
“Let me fix that,” Sark said. He threw his guns up in the air and spun down onto the ground. Before anyone realized he had even moved, he had caught the guns out of the air and was firing one in Weiss’s direction while hitting Stephanie rather hard in the knee cap with the butt of the other.
She went down hard, and Weiss dove for cover. Sydney wasted no time in reacting and was already half way out the door.
“Go ahead,” Sark yelled to her. “I’ll catch up once I’ve neutralized these two.”
She stopped in the doorway and turned back towards him. “I’m not leaving you alone with them.”
Sark punched Weiss hard in the stomach, and he doubled over in pain. “You have to go now, Syd.”
“I told you I’m not leaving.”
Sark saw Stephanie begin to revive herself on the other end of the room. “You are holding a small child that is apparently critical to the safety of this world. That kid is more important than either one of us.”
“You know something about this that I don’t,” she realized. “What the hell are you all hiding from me?”
“Just go. I’ll be fine, Syd.” He paused to fire a few rounds at Stephanie, causing her to duck for cover. “I’ve been in much worse situations than this with a hell of a lot less on my side. Go before you distract me too much, and I make a mistake. I can handle this and I promise I’ll be right behind you in a minute.”
Trusting in the faith that Sark had earned from her slowly through the past three years, she nodded and started to run down the hall. She could hear the sounds of gun shots and yelling begin to get softer as she worked her way farther away. It took so much effort for her not to start doubting him and turn back. As she walked, she kept expecting to hear Sark’s voice behind her, assuring her that he was just fine.
“I shouldn’t have left him,” she mumbled. “I have no idea what’s going on in there.”
When she did hear his voice finally, she almost stopped running. If her natural spy instincts hadn’t kicked in, she probably would have let herself turn around and go back to that hotel room, potentially sacrificing both her life and the life of Tyler Vaughn.
Because she didn’t hear Sark’s voice yelling confirmation that he was all right and there right behind her. What she heard was his voice screaming her name in pain.
She called up all her strength and kept running down the hall, knowing that he would be furious if she turned back. And he had promised her he would get out, so that means he will. When she reached the end, she allowed herself one last glance at the hotel room door, willing Sark to come stumbling out. That was the moment when an explosion rocked the hallway. It had come directly from Room 1547.
She stopped in her tracks to stare at the obliterated hallway. Not able to stop herself, she held Tyler close to her chest as she made her way back down the hall as calmly as she could. Squinting, she tried to see if there was any movement in the smoke-filled corridor ahead.
She could make out a few figures moving down the other end of the hallway, but she couldn’t decipher if one of them was Sark. There was too much smoke.
“Sydney! What the hell is going on?” Vaughn’s voice blared in her ear. He had overridden the radio silence.
“There was an explosion. Tyler and I are safe.”
She could tell that Vaughn had understood what she was telling him. “Sydney, you need to get out of there now. Please.”
She allowed herself a few more precious seconds of stupidity before gritting her teeth and starting to run down the hallway once more. She had to believe in her heart that he wasn’t stuck in the room when the explosion occurred, but her head kept telling her that she wasn’t that lucky a person.
Tears ran down her eyes as she entered the stairwell and began racing down the stairs. It was at that moment she realized that the spy life hadn’t changed at all.
It still could ruin her life.
Sydney Bristow 2300844
Cadet
did sark die?!?! i hope not!!
A Dark Turn
I Was Made to Love You
Umm... Gorgeous. I just caught up with this story last night and I have to say I think I'm in love with this story, kidblink83.
Great story so far!! Loving Bad Weiss and not-evil Lauren and Sark/Syd... Keep up the good work and can I get a pm from you when you update??
I think I'm in love with this story, kidblink83.:rotflmao: :rotflmao: Ha, ha. Cute line.
Oh, yes. Jealous Vaughn/Syd interaction. Priceless. I really liked the exchange between them; I thought it was very good writing. And I like semi-jealous Vaughn, anyway.
I wasn't going to include this, but I *love* this line. LOVE it!!!!
Perfect last line. Such a Sydney thing to think; really in character here.
Great story so far!! Loving Bad Weiss and not-evil Lauren and Sark/Syd... Keep up the good work and can I get a pm from you when you update??
Hurrah! An update and I got a PM (for some reason though - my CP does not like to pop up the PM's from you kidblink - which irritates me :hmm: )
I love it!!
onder: What could it be?!
I hope your computer gets fixed so you can update soon - my sanity may depend on it!! Thanks for remembering me for the PM :flowers:
:laughbounce: Cajun!Sark and his name is Remy?! OMG - that is f-in hilarious!!!! He is so reminding me of Gambit from X-Men with all his 'chere' and 'petite'
I love it!!Lovin' the 47 reference
*gathers mental picture* Mmmmm, thank you!
Oh yeah Evil!Weiss with the quick comebacks!
Oh, what's this? Sark's keeping something from Sydney?
onder: What could it be?!OMG - my poor little heart is breaking for Sark!! And eeeeeeeeee! An explosion?! What the hell is going on?!
I hope your computer gets fixed so you can update soon - my sanity may depend on it!!
Thanks for remembering me for the PM :flowers: