Title: Everything Is Relative: Part Two

Author : Sarah 

E-mail: sydney453@yahoo.com

Feedback: Makes my day.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing I tell you! Except the original characters.

Authors note: This is the sequel to Everything Is Relative, which is why it is so creatively titled Everything Is Relative: Part Two. So you might want to read that first. It picks up immediately after EIR. It's also an unedited unbetaed version. I thought I'd just throw it out there and see what everyone thought.

Everything Is Relative: Part Two

Chapter One- New Information

New York

Outside Central Park

              Sydney walked down the street quickly, not noticing that her father was trying to catch up to her.

"Sydney! Stop, wait for me." Jack yelled.

Jack jogged up to Sydney and stopped to regain his breath. "How do you walk so fast in those things?" he asked, gesturing at her three inch high sandals.

"Practice." Sydney spat out and then launched into a diatribe, "Who the hell does he think he is? He drags me all the way to New York and then refuses to give me any information! I hope he gets run over by a bus."

Jack attempted to calm Sydney. "He did say Agent Vaughn was still alive and that they had no intentions of killing him. At least we know that much."

Sydney snorted and resumed walking at her quick pace. "He could have told us that in the video. I'm getting really tired of this. We should just go back and retrieve Vaughn ourselves."

Jack grabbed Sydney's arm and made her stop walking. "Don't be ridiculous. They've surely left Taipei days ago. Sydney, you need to calm down and think straight."

Sydney closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "I just want Agent Vaughn to be back home safely."

"That's what we all want Sydney, but we can't start making rash decisions." Jack responded, and then dropping his voice to a whisper, he asked, "Have you removed the microphone?" Sydney nodded. "Good because I need to talk about something with you."

Jack took Sydney's arm and guided her towards a nearby restaurant. "This isn't something we should stand in the middle of the street discussing."

 He pulled open the door and followed Sydney in to the building. "Good afternoon," the hostess said, "Table for two?"

Jack and Sydney both nodded and then followed the hostess as she directed them towards a table near a window.

"A waiter will be with you shortly." Jack nodded his thanks as he pulled out a chair for Sydney.

"Dad, what's going on?"

Jack sat down across from Sydney and sighed, "I didn't want to bring this up today, but since we have a few hours until our flight back, I thought it would be best to just discuss it now."

Sydney looked confused, "Discuss what? Has Sloane done something again?"

Jack shook his head. "This has nothing to do with Sloane. This is about our family, Sydney. In the video and just now in the park Sark kept referring to Laura as his mother. Would you care to tell me about that?"

Sydney's eyes widened and she gasped, "Oh, Dad, I'm so sorry."

Sydney was interrupted when a waiter came to take their drink order. After brusquely dismissing him with requests for two glasses of white wine, Jack urged Sydney to continue. "What are you sorry about?"

Sydney rubbed her temple lightly, something that she did when she was uncomfortable, and then continued, "I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, but so much has happened recently, we haven't had any time to speak in private."

Jack nodded, still not expecting what Sydney was about to say. "Dad, Sark is your son."

Jack gasped and muttered, "I should have known."

Sydney looked down and fiddled with the cutlery in front of her. "My.. my mother," it still felt odd to Sydney to say that, "told me that he was my brother when we were in Taipei. I'm sorry, Dad. I should have told you about this immediately." Sydney looked at Jack with tears in her eyes.

Jack patted Sydney's had and comfortingly said,"It's alright, Sydney. This has been a very emotional time for you and I understand why you didn't want to speak about it."

 Sydney closed her eyes and nodded, trying to collect herself. Jack and Sydney both lapsed into silence, lost in their own thoughts.

              A man watched Sark gradually regain consciousness. He laughed as Sark began to struggle against the hand cuffs that held his hands behind his back.

The man—an SD-6 agent named Walker—finally broke the silence, "Nice of you to rejoin me, Mr. Sark."

Sark began to say something but Agent Walker held up his hand to stop him. "Oh, you don't have to say anything, I know you appreciate this free trip to Los Angeles. Which is where we're going by the way."

Sark finally spoke, "What the hell do you want with me?"

Agent Walker laughed. "As if you don't know. Did you and Miss Bristow really think that your meeting would be a secret?"

Sark swore under his breath, cursing Sydney for not being more careful in her quest to find Agent Vaughn. "What meeting? Two people who happen to know one another accidentally meet, it's been known to happen."

Walker laughed quietly, "Right, the two of you just happened to bump into each other in one of the biggest cities in the country."

Sark shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

Walker got up and began pacing the walkway. "We'll be arriving in Los Angeles shortly. I suggest you think of a better story than that one."

 Los Angeles

Arvin Sloane's Home

               Sloane walked through his garden searching for Audrey. He found her weeding the rose bushes. "You know we have people who are paid to do that."

Audrey looked up at her father and smiled. "Yeah, I know, but it was such a nice day and I didn't have anything else to do. Besides I'd rather be out here doing this than inside doing nothing."

Sloane nodded, trying not to look at Audrey, who looked so much like Emily at that moment. Glancing up towards the sky he said, "Your mother loved to be out here too."

Audrey sat back on her heels, watching her father. "Is everything alright Dad?"

Sloane managed a tense smile. "Yes, fine." At Audrey's skeptical look he added, "Memories."

Audrey nodded understanding exactly how he felt. Sloane cleared his throat and rocked back and forth on his heels.

Audrey stood up with an amused smile on her face. "You're doing it again."

At Sloane's questioning look, Audrey continued, "Whenever you have something important to tell me you do that clear your throat, fidget thing. It's cute really."

Sloane snorted at Audrey's teasing. "Cute? Oh, that's great. That's just what I want to be."

Sloane's good-natured smile faded as he became more serious. "I actually do want to talk to you about something.  There are some things I wanted to discuss with you about your job at SD-6."

Sloane gestured for Audrey to follow him and they made their way to the chairs by their pool. "As you know Credit Dauphine is a front for SD-6. So if anyone were to ask you what you do for a living you are to tell them that you are an executive assistant the bank."

Audrey smirked. "You mean I don't get to be vice president? Too bad."

Sloane sent Audrey a chiding glance and continued, "You'll be coming in with me on your first day and I'll show you to SD-6's offices." Sloane reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a small card and handed it to Audrey, "This is your ID, you're to have it on your person at all times."

Audrey smirked as she looked it over. "Thanks for using my drivers license photo."

Sloane rolled his eyes and continued, "I wanted to spare you the hassle of dealing with administration."

Audrey nodded, adding "I appreciate that," in a sarcastic tone of voice. 

Sloane stared at her, "You have to understand, working at SD-6 is not your average job. It must be taken seriously."

"I understand." Audrey responded, becoming more serious.  She then asked,  "Tell me, what exactly will I be doing?"

Sloane reached into his pocket again and pulled out a key. "You'll be working with a scientist in research and development. You'll be handling the research part of the job. The man you'll be working with, Marshall, creates the equipment that our agents use during missions. Mostly listening and recording devices."

He handed Audrey the key. "This is the key to your and Marshall's office. When you arrive at work on Monday, I'll show you to the office, but I'd advise you to not get too settled until Marshall arrives. He's a bit… high strung and doesn't like strangers poking around in his things. After you're introduced though, feel free to make yourself comfortable."

Audrey pocketed the key and looked at her father. "I can't wait."

               Sydney walked into SD-6 headquarters Monday morning, glancing around for Audrey as she made her way towards her desk. Seeing that Audrey was nowhere to be found, Sydney sat at her desk and attempted to look through the paperwork that she had let pile up over the last week. After a few minutes of idly glancing through the text on the pages, she gave up and sat back in her chair. Sydney was still agitated from her brief visit with Sark and couldn't concentrate. No one had heard anything from Sark or Laura since their meeting and Sydney was beginning to think that they would never contact her again.

"Sydney, are you okay?" Sydney jumped when Dixon spoke, she hadn't even realized he had sat down at his desk.

Sydney nodded. "Oh, fine. Why do you ask?"

Dixon fixed her with a disbelieving look. "Well, I've been sitting here for ten minutes and you haven't even looked in my direction. You usually say hi."

Sydney sighed. "Dixon, I'm sorry. I've just got a lot of things on my mind."

Dixon nodded with an understanding look on his face. He lowered his voice and responded, "Jack told me about this weekend. I'm sorry, this must be very trying for you."

 Sydney nodded. "You have no idea." She glanced up and saw that Audrey was being shown to Marshall's office by Sloane. "The fact that Audrey is working here doesn't help matters."

              Audrey glanced around her new office, taking in all the computers and gadgets lying around. "There sure is a lot of… stuff in here."

Sloane chuckled. "That's all of Marshall's equipment. I honestly don't know what half of it is for, but he gets the job done so I can't complain." He glanced down at his watch. "Marshall should be arriving momentarily. I thought it would be best to introduce you to him first since you'll be working so closely together."

Audrey continued examining the room. "I still don't understand exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm not what you would call technologically savvy. Impaired would be a better word."

Sloane nodded. "Yes, but you have a degree in art history. A lot of the information that we have retrieved recently has come from very ancient sources. Many of the pieces of information are…" he paused, trying to find the right word, "..coded into pieces of art."

Audrey looked at her father, suspecting he was being vague on purpose and was about to ask another question when Marshall came bursting into the room.

Marshall threw his jacket onto a chair and jumped when he saw that Sloane and Audrey were standing in a corner of the room, watching him.

"Um, hi. I was hoping… that you hadn't yet arrived." Marshall paused, looking uncomfortable. "But here you are. Sorry I'm late. Traffic. Um, it was bad. Very ba…" He trailed off when he saw the look Sloane was giving him.

"It's fine Marshall. I'd like you to meet my daughter Audrey."

 Marshall reached out to shake Audrey's hand, managing to sputter out, "It's very nice to meet you. I'm glad to work with you."

Audrey smiled at Marshall. "Same here. It should be fun."

Audrey shot her father an amused look, to which Sloane replied with a shrug. He said, "I have a meeting right now, so I'll leave you two to get acquainted. I'll show you around the rest of the office later."

Audrey nodded and watched her father leave. She turned to Marshall and brightly said, "Well, I'm happy to finally be working here."

Marshall nodded and began pacing around the office nervously, he gestured towards an empty desk, "This will be yours. Of course if you don't like it… you can always take mine. If you want." He paused awkwardly. "You'll have to excuse the mess, I'm not used to sharing… my, uh, office."

Audrey nodded and took a deep breath before speaking quickly, "I'm sure I make you nervous, being the bosses daughter and all, but you really don't have to be. I'm here to do my job, not tattle on you. From what I've heard about your job, it sounds fascinating and I look forward to helping you in any way I can."

Marshall sat in his chair and watched Audrey warily as she continued to look around the office. "Oh, I'm not nervous. I'm… thrilled, really."

Audrey nodded. "I'm glad."

Audrey stopped at a work desk and looked into the fishbowl perched upon it. "That's a nice fish. What kind is it?"

Marshall got up and stood next to Audrey. "It's a Samurai fighting fish. His name is Athos."

Audrey nodded, murmuring "He's beautiful."

Marshall nodded his thanks. "Yeah, I used to have a goldfish in there too. But I didn't realize that the Samurai was carnivorous, so one day I looked up and saw that the goldfish was gone. Apparently the Samurai… got hungry."

Audrey opened her mouth to reply, but couldn't find the proper response. She finally settled on saying, "Oh, well…. that's just… awful." Marshall nodded and frowned and then wandered away, adding, "The poor little guy probably never even saw it coming."

Audrey sat at her desk with a bewildered look on her face, saying, "Oh, sure."

               Sydney sat on a chair in Sloane's office, watching him pace across the room. He finally sat down in the chair next to Sydney, and turned to face her.

"Sydney I need you to be honest with me." Sloane paused when Sydney shot him a questioning look. "I know that you were in New York over the weekend. You have to tell me why you were there." He fixed Sydney with a level gaze, waiting for her to respond.

Sydney sighed and began to speak, "Late last week I received an e-mail telling me that someone had information as to the whereabouts of my mother."

Sydney paused when she was interrupted by Sloane asking, "That someone was Sark, wasn't it?"

Sydney nodded. "Yes, it was Sark. He told me to come to New York alone and not to tell anyone about it."

Sydney trailed off, allowing Sloane to ask, "While I don't approve of the way you went about this, I'm happy that you're telling the truth now. What did Sark tell you about your mother?"

Sydney got up and began pacing the room agitatedly. "That's just it! He dragged me all the way across the country and then he didn't even tell me anything! He just smirked at me and said he was glad that I was willing to go there."

Sloane looked up at Sydney. "Well, Sydney what do you expect from someone like Sark? You should know that he can't be believed. I know that you're anxious to get into contact with your mother, but you need to think before you jump into anything like this again."

Sydney nodded, looking chastened. "I know, but it's just so frustrating. Knowing that she's out there somewhere, just out of my reach."

Sloane nodded his understanding. "Well you're in luck. Mr. Sark has decided to pay us a visit. He's being brought to the office as we speak." 

Sydney gasped. "You kidnapped him?"

Sloane chuckled. "Kidnapped is such a harsh word. I like to think we borrowed him for a while. Don't worry Sydney, if he cooperates we might let him go."

Sydney nodded, trying to keep the emotions that she was feeling off of her face. She started to get up, "If there's nothing else, I'd like to say hello to Audrey."

Sloane got up to open the door. "No we're done here. I'll contact you when Sark arrives."

End Episode One