Disclaimer: same

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Sorry this chapter took a little longer than expected. I'm not too happy with it at the moment - most of it came out as filler rather than actual 'plot'. The next chapter should be a lot better.

Also, thanks to the shifty schedule of new episodes (getting pre-empted, no one really knowing what's ACTUALLY going on with Vaguhn's character) this is now going AU. I was trying really hard to keep it from doing that, but thanks to the changes in scheduling, I had to shift gears. Hope no one minds! Enjoy and please review!

OOOOO

I spoke with Carl on and off for the next couple of weeks before Dean returned from Los Angeles. Carl let it slip that he was there 'on business'. I had no idea if the slip was really an accident as he tried to make it seem, or if he just said it to try and get a rise out of me. Either way, I just hoped that whatever Dean was up to in LA didn't have anything to do with Sydney this time.

Finally, just when I was beginning to wonder if I was already too late to try and cut this deal with him, he showed up at the door of my cell. I sat up, looking over at him for a long moment before he spoke.

"Whatever it is you want, you better make it quick. I've got a schedule to keep," he stated, folding his arms impatiently across his chest. I got to my feet, once again trying to steel myself and keep my composure. After all, doing this was practically asking for him to kill me. It wasn't unlike committing suicide.

"I'm ready to talk," I stated. For a moment, he didn't react. I was about to clarify when his eyes widened and he dropped his arms to his sides. He nodded a little, thinking over what that could mean for his endgame.

"I'm sure you want my word that Sydney Bristow be left alone in exchange," he replied.

"If I give you whatever it is you're after, there's no reason for you to go after her anymore," I shot back, not directly answering his question but still giving him the reasoning I'd come up with when I had this crazy idea in the first place. He nodded again after a moment.

"All right," he said. "You've got yourself a deal." He walked over to the far side of the hall, grabbing the chair and pulling it up beside the cell so he could take a seat. "I've already got the manuscript, and we're still working on decoding that. However, the people that requested the complete translation are missing a vital piece of the puzzle."

"What?" I asked.

"I suppose there's no harm in telling you this," Dean said with a sigh, shrugging a little. I tried not to flinch at the tone of his voice, knowing exactly what he meant. Whatever he said to me didn't matter – once he had the information he needed me for, he'd have me executed. "The manuscript details a genetic code. We had a doctor working on discovering a way to translate that code from text into actual DNA."

"Like the Helix Protocol," I stated. Dean smiled a little at that.

"Not quite. The code in that manuscript is five hundred years old – there isn't any viable tissue to copy, and you can imagine that, without a sample, it would be nearly impossible."

"A sample of what exactly?"

"Live tissue," Dean answered. He shook his head after a moment. "I know there was only one source of such a thing, and it's been destroyed. So, we need to find the key to all of this. The key to translating the code in the book into actual cells."

"I don't understand – what does this have to do with me?"

"There's a page of the Prophet Five book that we're missing," Dean continued, not directly answering my question. "That page has the key on it. From what my employer tells me, that page has been missing since 1973."

I froze. For the first time, I knew exactly what he was after.

"I'm sure you've seen the piece of the code we need," Dean stated after a moment. "Your father copied it into his journal, right? In case he ever needed it for something?"

"That's what all of this was about?" I questioned. He smiled.

"Indirectly, yes," he answered, unfazed. I just shook my head. Forcing me to fake my own death, threatening Sydney… The whole mess was just about a stupid code – a series of letters and numbers I didn't understand until I found out that the book was the transcription of someone's DNA.

"What's the deal with the code in the book?" I questioned. Dean narrowed his eyes. "It has something to do with Rambaldi, doesn't it?"

"I don't see why that should concern you," he stated after a moment.

"You're going to kill me anyway. Humor me," I snapped. Dean thought for a long moment, finally nodding a little.

"It does," he agreed. "Now… The code?" I glared at him. I knew he wasn't going to tell me anything else. Not that it mattered anyway – even if I did figure out what he was up to, there was no way for me to explain that to anyone at this point.

Finally, I gave in.

I told Dean the entire code. It was some kind of an equation – AG13 plus 4 and several other small blocks, which all equaled out to the number 47. That was my first clue that the whole thing had some relevance to Rambaldi.

He pulled a notepad out of his jacket pocket and wrote the entire thing down. He checked over it for a moment, like he was trying to make sure that it made sense and I hadn't just given him a bunch of useless numbers and letters. Finally, he put the pad back in his pocket and stood, pushing the chair away.

"Thank you. I'll let Carl know we're finished," he said, going back upstairs without even a glance back over his shoulder.

OOOOO

Nothing happened that night, or the next day. Peyton came down once to bring me food, and I realized her arm was in a sling and there were bandages all over her right shoulder. She didn't bother trying to make idle conversation that time, so I didn't ask what happened to her.

That night, Carl came down with two other guards with guns. I swallowed thickly, realizing what this was about even before he said anything. He walked straight up to the door of the cell, unlocking it and opening it.

"Come on," he said with a nod. I stood, walking to the door.

Leaving this place was a lot less disorienting and painful than my transfer out of the Los Alamos facility. It must have been the middle of the night, because there was no one in the upstairs room of the place. Not even Dean had stuck around for this, which I found a little strange. After everything, I assumed he would be watching the whole thing, if he wasn't the one holding the gun.

Carl led the way outside and to the alley, where there was a black van parked and waiting. I climbed into the back, knowing that trying to make a run for it was useless. I knew that cooperating was just prolonging the inevitable. Nevertheless, I climbed into the van. Carl followed me, pulling a pistol out of his belt as he took a seat across from me. One of the other men closed the door and they headed for the front of the van.

"Any last words?" Carl asked with a smirk. I just shook my head at him and ignored his snide comments the rest of the trip.

My best guess was that we were in the van for about forty minutes. By the way the entire vehicle was jostled back and forth, I figured we were in the literal middle of nowhere. I didn't even know what country we were in to begin with. I was tempted to tell Carl it was useless to drag me to the middle of nowhere to kill me, but I kept quiet.

Finally, we came to a stop. I heard one door at the front of the van open and close, and one of the guards circled around and opened the back doors. Carl ordered me out of the van; taking hold of my arm once we were out of the vehicle.

He pressed the gun into the back of my neck, marching me several paces away from the van into the empty field. Aside from the van's headlights, the only light for miles came from the moon high above us. After a few moments, Carl decided we were far enough away from the van.

"Get on your knees," he barked. I did so. I heard him load a round into the chamber of the gun, clenching my jaw and trying to prepare myself for the pain.

Suddenly, Carl shouted something in German and I heard the doors of the van slam closed again. I didn't move, still waiting for him to just shoot me and get it over with.

The shot never came.

Instead, I heard Carl dart back to the van, climbing into the back. Before he even got the door closed all the way, the driver gunned the engine. The van circled around me and started off down the road that led into this field in the first place, heading back for the main road.

I didn't stay there to wonder why Carl didn't kill me. I knew it was possible that he was just screwing around, and would be back in a few minutes to finish the job. So, I got to my feet and started off running in the other direction.

I got as far as I could in the dark, finding a slight clearing with some rocks where I could rest for a while. It was so dark that I couldn't tell if I was walking straight or going in circles, so I figured waiting until morning was the best option. As soon as there was enough light to see for more than a few feet, I started off again. What I really wanted was to find a road. Some sign of civilization would be helpful. Just because Carl didn't shoot me didn't mean I was home free.

It was almost dark again when I finally found a small road. It was paved, which was a good sign. Neither direction seemed more promising than the other, so I just picked one and started walking along the side of the road, hoping to see a car.

I had to stop a few times because my feet were just too sore to keep walking. Night had fallen, and after a few hours of walking, I was starting to lose hope of anyone finding me out here.

I started wondering why I was just left out here alone. Did Dean request that Carl leave me alive? And, if so, why? If he didn't, why did Carl let me go? Maybe he figured it was the best way to sabotage Dean's operation without jeopardizing himself directly. I didn't have any idea, but I was thankful for whatever happened that left me alive for the time being.

The other thing I couldn't stop thinking about was Sydney. I knew the first thing I had to do, after finding somewhere comfortable to sleep and getting some food, was find some way to contact her. I had no idea how she would react to finding out I was still alive. I hoped she would take the news better than I did when I saw her in Hong Kong.

I was shaken out of my thoughts by a pair of headlights on the horizon. I immediately stepped out into the middle of the road, hoping the driver would see me and stop.

It only took a few minutes for the car to arrive at my position. It slowed to a stop, and an elderly woman climbed out of the driver's seat. She looked at me like I was completely insane for a moment, and then her look softened.

She started speaking in rapid-fire Czech that I didn't understand a word of. I tried to find out if she spoke English, which she didn't. After a few moments of confusion due to the language barrier, she allowed me to climb into the passenger seat of the car. I caught the word for 'city' – that being one of the five words of Czech I could actually speak – and tried my best to thank her as we started back towards civilization.

OOOOO

For the first time in a long time, I not only knew what day it was – November fifteenth – I also knew what time it was – 10:23 PM. Just that simple fact put a smile on my face, reinforcing the fact that I somehow managed to get out from under Gordon Dean's shadow.

The woman that drove me back into town dropped me off at the police station. It was one of the only places that was still open, and a few of the officers spoke English. Unfortunately, one of the first things they did was drag me off into an interrogation room, wanting to make sure this wasn't some kind of a ploy.

Despite my desire to contact Sydney first, I knew I couldn't say anything to civilian police officers. So, my first call had to be to someone with the agency. Since APO was a black-ops division, the only person I could hope to contact was Director Chase. I had to call through the switchboard, of course – getting her on a direct line from a phone in the middle of the Czech Republic at a police station was impossible.

"Chase," she answered her phone in an authoritative bark.

"It's Michael Vaughn. I'm in the Czech Republic – I need an extraction," I replied shortly. I knew there would be time for explanations later. Right now, I was just concerned with getting out of here unscathed.

"I'm sorry?" Chase asked, now sounding confused.

"I can explain later, but right now I'm at a police station in a small village about three hours outside Prague, and I've got an officer breathing down my neck," I answered with a tired sigh. "However you want to run protocol is fine with me, but I'd like to get out of here sooner rather than later."

"Understood. Is there any way for you to get to a safe house?" she asked, leaving the rest of her questions for later. Considering how many people mysteriously came back from the dead in our line of work, it was all just a matter of working out the details anyway.

"No," I stated.

"I'll get in touch with an in-country contact, you should be out of the station within the hour. He'll take you to a safe house until we can arrange transport back to the states," Chase replied.

"All right." She hung up the phone, already getting to work on getting me out of here.

As promised, a CIA affiliate working out of Prague showed up forty minutes later. Apparently, he was already in the area, and it took less than ten minutes to flash the CIA badge to the cops in the station and get me out to his car.

He didn't say much on the trip to the safe house – following protocol, I figured – and it gave me the chance to spend the drive thinking about what I was going to say to Sydney. Of course, seeing her face-to-face was preferable, but I couldn't put this off anymore.

"All right, you can rest here until everything is settled," the man – an older agent named Dreistch – explained as he let me into one of the rooms of the small safe house. The place was relatively secluded and empty aside from the two of us, so I felt safer than I had at the police station. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Yeah," I replied seriously, turning away from my brief examination of the room and looking at him. "I need a phone."