So guys, here's the next chapter. Thanks for the awesome reviews I got on the last chapter. I really had a hard time writing this one, bad case of writer's block. So I hope it's not tooo bad, but I doubt that I'll do it any better if I rewrote it once again...

Responses:

ali: thanks for the review, and thanks for the idea, just what I needed to get some inspiration, I promise you Irina will make her appearances. How she'll react? Well, you'll have to stay with the story to find out ;)

Ok, here goes nothing.... Reviews are always highly appreciated!

Crossing the Line

Chapter 4 - Sydney? What happened?:

Julia was woken up by a loud knock at her door the next morning. She groaned silently, slowly opening her eyes and adjusting them to the dim light that was coming through the shutters. It took her a few moments to figure out where she was and why she was in this cheap hotel room. The Covenant. Her death. Sark. Mission. Right.

Sydney wanted to just go back to sleep again, postponing the problems and most importantly the dealing with them for a few more hours, but a second knocking at the door of her room made clear that sleeping in again wasn't a possibility.

"One moment. I'm right there!" Julia said loud enough to be heard on the other side of the door. She stood up and put on the morning robe of the hotel. She walked to the door and looked through the spy hole in the door.

"Who's there?" Julia asked with an innocent voice, already knowing that Sark was standing in front of her door. What a way to begin the day.

"It's me darling. So why don't you just –" Sark began but was interrupted when the door was suddenly opened and a very angry Sydney was cutting him off.

"I'm NOT your darling. For the last time. If you call me like that ever again I'll…"

"You'll what? Hate me even more?" Sark asked amused and not afraid in the slightest.

Julia realized her mistake; she was acting too much like Sydney. Damn it, if some other good-looking partner of hers had called her darling just for fun she would have been flattered and flirted a little bit at the least. She had a certain reputation and being overly aggressive wasn't part of it. Sark sure as hell knew it and would only take her behavior as a proof for her being Sydney.

"Why do you think I hate you?" Julia asked sweetly while wanting to smack this cocky grin from her partner's face. But if she had to be nice with Sark and flirt with him to maintain her cover she'd do it. She had told Kendall that she could and would do it, so she couldn't back out now. However, her will to not kill Sark during the next days had a hard time once again when Sark began to grin even wider.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you're picking on me the whole time?"

"I'm not."

"You are."

Sydney starred straight at Sark, not knowing what to do next. He was trying to provoke her and she couldn't let that happened. On the other hand it was personally bothering her to back down. But what choice had she?

"Whatever. Do you want anything else than insinuating that I hate you, although I don't even know you?" Julia had to fight a slight smile when she saw Sark's face. He was definitely taken aback by her words. Not surprising through, after all she was kind of giving in and tried to change the topic, but at the same time she was still insisting on her actual point of her NOT hating him or picking on him. Julia always had to have the last word. No matter what.

"Actually yes, I came here for business. We gotta make plans for tomorrow. Shall we go to my room or to yours?" Sark asked politely as always.

"Yours. I'll just change into something different than this robe and then I'll come over in, let's say 15 minutes?"

"Ok." Sark agreed and left without saying anything else. So Julia went back into her room too and got ready.

Planning the mission with Sark, while he will observe every move I make and every damn thing I say for proofs of me still being me. And I didn't even have a coffee or just breakfast. Great, just great.

Quite some time later Julia and Sark were sitting on Sark's bed, looking together at a plan of a warehouse.

"Ok, as far as I know we gotta kill the person who enters this warehouse at 1 p.m. I still don't see for what we need to be two to do this job, but whatever. Maybe one of us should stay in a car nearby so that we can get away quickly. I guess that would be you then, missing all the fun. Not that I would mind." Julia said after seeing that the warehouse had none security or whatsoever. Not surprising considering it hadn't been used for years.

"Well, I got some more information than you do. And I will indeed stay outside to guarantee our escape, but I won't miss all the fun. Thanks for worrying about me through." Julia shot him a look and rolled her eyes at his comment, Sark smiled a little but continued as if nothing happened. "Two people will enter this warehouse at 1 p.m., a man and a woman. We gotta kill the woman, not the man. One of us, you, will wait inside of the house and kill the woman as soon as the other one, me, has killed the bodyguards who probably will be waiting outside the warehouse." Sark told Julia while looking through some papers of his.

"Why do you know more than I? Why do you have this freaking information and I don't?" Julia asked angry that Sark knew more than her.

"I don't know Julia. I can just tell you what I was told. I got no idea why they wanted you to know less than me. I'm sorry but you can't seriously be angry with me because THEY didn't tell you something." Sark said annoyed. It wasn't his fault that their bosses seemed to not trust Julia.

Julia knew that he was right and she also realized that she was indeed unfair. Sark had been nothing but truly polite to her and it would do no good if she took her anger about the Covenant out on Sark.

Oh great, now I'm even beginning to have a bad conscience because of being rude to Sark. TO SARK OF ALL PEOPLE. What's wrong with me today? Yesterday I had no problem with being a bitch and today I'm nearly feeling sorry? Calm down Sydney, just concentrate on the word nearly and stay with it.

"I'm sorry, you're right. I just don't like it to be left in the dark about something. This whole mission is strange. First this stupid guy Farrell is asking me to go to this mission and threatens me to better not mess this up. Then I get a partner although it seemed like I wouldn't need one. And now I don't even have gotten all the information."

Sark hadn't expected that Julia would be friendly or even honest anymore. Her apology and her explanation didn't fit her other behavior. He sighed but nodded with a soft smile. A sign that he accepted her apology. How couldn't he? She was honest with him, also it was more than confusing for him. He thought he had figured her out, thought she was so unfriendly because she knew who he was, because she still was Sydney. But the Sydney he knew wouldn't just change her behavior that drastic. She might be less aggressive towards him, but not this friendly. The normal Sydney Bristow would have just said "sorry" or (more likely) "whatever" or something, but would never have explained something. Not to him.

Maybe that's her plan through. Maybe she does things she wouldn't do to make me believe she' not her. Damn it, this is so fucking confusing!

Later…

"Ok then, you'll wait inside of the building and I will hide on the outside. As soon as our victims arrive and enter the warehouse I'll take care of the bodyguards. Then you will kill the woman and let the man see you while you're escaping. He will know then that the Covenant was behind everything. When he checks up on you he will find his suspicions confirmed that you're Covenant. And our dear bosses will be satisfied." Sark summed up the result of their work of the last hour.

They had thought about where Julia would wait for the right moment and where he would hide. Julia had been surprised when Sark had told her that the Covenant wanted her to kill the woman, but she hadn't refused to do it. Sark had said that probably the man already knew Julia from her other missions and so he would know right away that the Covenant was responsible. This theory had a few weaknesses, one being that if Sark killed the woman it would be pretty obvious that the Covenant was behind it all too, but neither Julia nor Sark spoke their doubts out loud. Both thought that it had something to do with Julia actually being Sydney. But they of course couldn't talk about it because Sydney couldn't and wouldn't admit anything.

At noon Julia and Sark arrives at the warehouse. They parked the black van between two other warehouses, well hidden for searching eyes. There were an old fabric which hadn't been used for years and five warehouses which had belonged to the fabric once. All together it looked like a little village – a ghost village.

"It's a nice place, quiet and private, don't you think?" Sark asked when they were climbing out of the van and walking to the warehouse the victims would use.

"Oh yeah, now you're talking about it I see it too. I think I'll spend my next holidays here! I mean it's so beautiful and everything!" Julia said sarcastically and rolled her eyes.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't notice that it was bitchy time again. Sue me for trying to make some conversation with the ice-lady." Sark retorted annoyed. He wondered what was wrong with Sydney, she had been quite nice the whole day, except for a few times when she snapped and now she was all aggressive all over again. He just didn't see a pattern, or any reason for that matter, in her behavior and that confused him.

"The ice-lady. What a compliment, you REALLY know how to make a girl feel good. And you're still surprised why I'm snapping at you?"

"Whatever. At least now you're admitting it."

"Admitting what?"

"That you're snapping at me, two hours ago you still denied it. I guess that's a progress?"

"Stop talking bullshit. I'm sorry if I have to burst your bubble, but not every girl falls for your "charms", I'm not, for example, if you haven't got that yet. So excuse me when I don't think you're all funny and whatever-else-your-used-to!"

"Ouch, that really hurt my ego. I always thought I was irresistible and the Casanova of the 21th century."

"Save your sarcasms for someone who cares about it."

"Aye aye madam!"

"Just shut up already. You can just stay here, you got nothing to do inside anyway, so please give me a rest while I prepare everything. Just tell me when you see them coming." Julia said and went into the warehouse, letting Sark standing in front of it. He smiled and went away to his planned position, he loved pissing Julia off. Although she was one of the few persons who pissed him off too. About most people Sark simply didn't care enough to get upset about them.

"Ok, so I guess we'll do what we always do, that guy has to be dead before he can talk about anything." The man said while he was coming out of a dark limo, followed by a blonde woman. Four bodyguards were escorting them from the car to the entrance. There the man ordered them to wait outside and to be alerted, if anyone would be trying to interrupt or to get into the warehouse he should be killed immediately.

The woman didn't seem to find these orders strange in the slightest; instead she just walked into the warehouse with her head held high. The man followed her leisurely.

Sark observed the whole seem and didn't move until the man and the woman had vanished in the warehouse. "I guess that's my cue then…" He murmured and loaded his gun.

Inside the warehouse Julia was sitting in the roof beam, her guns ready next to her. Sark had told her 60 seconds ago that a black limo was approaching and had informed her that he would go on radio silence. Sydney had bite back a "thank you" or "finally". She didn't want to overdo it, besides she had the strange feeling that the more time she spend with Sark, the less she was picking on him because of her hatred for him. She was rather giving caustic remarks because there were moments she forgot that she hated him. When they had planned there were moments where she had just talked to someone, not to the hated terrorist Sark.

Julia heard the motor of the limo approaching and finally being switched off. She heard voices and footfalls. Slowly but with experienced and confident motions she was picking up her gun, setting up the aim, loading it and aiming for the door, determined to not let the victim out of her aim for one second after she entered the warehouse.

She wondered for one moment when she had become so cold, when had been the first time that she wasn't feeling very bad to the murder she was about to commit? She really didn't know.

I guess it happened somewhere along the way. Like the most changes, nothing changes from one moment to the other, the important things which last were these who were growing slowly. But this attitude of mine shouldn't last, after all I'm killing a person. Even if she's not innocent, what I don't really know, but what is most likely, it's me who's pulling the trigger. For my country. More or less.

But before Sydney could contemplate further about whether what she was doing was right or not, the door of the warehouse was opened. A blonde woman strode in confidently and Julia's first impression was that she and that woman were alike. That woman had the same self-confident pace Julia had too. Something about her was strangely familiar and Sydney was pretty sure she knew that face from… somewhere. She just couldn't put it into the right place.

Once again she was distracted by a person who entered the warehouse, this time it was the man. Another well known man. Sloane. Arvin Sloane, the devil himself.

So much about that woman being innocent. Whoever deals with Sloane isn't innocent in the least.

Sydney was tempted to shoot Sloane right in his damn cocky lying face, but she restrained. She knew there were too much at stake to ruin everything now. She would hunt Sloane down some day and then the new supposedly "benefactor" would finally get what he deserved.
Julia aimed for the woman again and concentrated on the situation beneath her.

"So, you said you had him under control, but yet he was talking to Kendall a few days ago privately." Sloane said with disdain in his voice, he was obviously not content about something.

The woman rolled her eyes and said slightly annoyed: "With all due respect, he suspects nothing. I haven't given him any reason. Maybe he was just talking about a nightmare? It would fit with him. He's weak, even if he finds out, he won't be a problem, he will confront me before ratting on me, you know honor and wounded pride and all that stuff. It's all he has. Let's better talk about the real problem. One of your people made a mistake and now you're searching for someone to blame. They know there's a mole and they won't need too long to find out it's in our bureau. How in hell should I get out of this? My behavior won't withstand a closer investigation without some very good excuses."

"Don't worry, we'll take care of this in time. If you say that there's no threat to your cover we'll trust you. But be careful, the Covenant doesn't forgive mistakes that easily."

"Yes sir. Here's the package that I was ordered to give to you. Some Rambaldi artifact."

"Julia? I got everything done out here. I'm waiting for you in the car." Sark told Julia about her earpiece. She nodded although no one could see it. She actually wanted to listen a little longer, because she was curious about what Sloane and the woman were talking, but she knew her instructions.

Just when Julia wanted to pull the trigger and end the job, suddenly a picture shot through her mind. She remembered where she had seen the woman. Together with Vaughn, the last weekend in L.A. But what was she doing here? Wasn't she CIA?

Great, now I get to kill his new girlfriend. The wish of every ex, right? Well, I guess that will make him hate me forever. On the other side, he thinks I'm freaking dead.

"Julia? Everything's alright? Do you need back up?" Sark asked through the mic. Julia was ripped out of her thoughts. She had a job to do.
"No, everything's fine. I'm… I'm right there." She murmured and aimed again at the girlfriend of the love of her life.

She pulled the trigger and shot the woman three times. A perfect triangle, just like she had been trained to. Sydney watched the woman freeze in place and then fall slowly to the ground like in slow-motion. Sloane was looking up, searching for the shooter, already reaching for his own gun. She stood up and drew his eyes on her. She was satisfied to see the surprise and fear in them. She still didn't understand why the Covenant had given her that assignment when Sloane and the woman were working for them, but in this moment she was grateful for the job. Grateful to get the chance to scare Arvin Sloane.

Julia grabbed her things and jumped out of the next window, a slim rope keeping her from crashing to the ground. A few meters above the ground she cut the rope right over her shoulder with a knife and ran to the track where Sark was already waiting. She climbed in the car and Sark started the engine immediately. Then Julia had a meltdown and the tears began to fall down her cheeks. What had she done?! How would she explain THAT to Kendall? What would Vaughn think of her if he ever find out? And what in hell had Sloane and that woman been talking about? A mole in the CIA?

Sark was looking shocked at the crying woman next to him. "Sydney? What happened?"

Well, that was that chapter. Who of you saw that coming? Lauren and Sloane together and Sydney got the assignment to kill her... And she doesn't even know that Lauren and Vaughn were about to marry. You want to know what happens next and what's about Sark and Sydney? Review in order to get me to update faster... :D Tell me what you think, pretty pretty please!