Title: MYSTERIA (Familiar Face, book two)
Author: Nicole
Author's Note: This is the sequel to my first fanfic, "Mosemotsane," and the second in my series "Familiar Face."
Feedback / E-Mail: nicole@lafetra.com
Disclaimer: I don't own "Alias" or any of the characters in it, which, although it makes me sad, is a good thing because I would completely screw it up.
Classification / Genre: General/Mystery
Summary: A double identity. An uncertain past. How far is Sydney willing to go to uncover a mystery?
Rating: PG

********************
MYSTERIA: Part 1
********************

"That's crazy. You're saying that K-Directorate started chasing after a woman who looked exactly like you." Vaughn frowned, leaning back against a stack of crates.

Sydney could tell he was skeptical, and frankly, she couldn't blame him. When she'd run into her doppelganger in a Pennsylvania forest, she hadn't been able to believe her eyes. The other woman's hair, eyes, build, *voice* had matched her own almost perfectly. "She looked a little younger than me, but that's it. If I'd seen a picture of her and someone told me it was me . . ." She shrugged. "I would've believed them, no question."

"We have no reports of your father having another child," Vaughn added. He looked through a file he held.

"And I don't remember ever having a little sister. I would've been only a year or two old, though," Sydney admitted grudgingly. "But I swear, she looked exactly like me!"

"I believe you," Vaughn replied with a quick look up. He sighed. "If you want me to, I'll look into it. I have to warn you, it means telling Devlin about this mysterious woman."

"That shouldn't be much of a problem."

Vaughn flipped back through his file, looking restless. "It could be more of a problem than you know. Having two of you running around-" He smiled briefly and shook his head. "It could pose more risks than I could possibly list. We'd likely have to pull you out of service as a double agent and put you under that protection program you said you could never live under."

"Dammit."

"I know. Do you still want me to investigate?"

Sydney bit her lip, debating. Finally, she said, "I don't think I could live with this mystery hanging over my head. If it means retiring from SD-6, I guess that's the price I pay." Her miserable tone belied the light words.

"Give me a week. I'll do all I can." Vaughn watched her, taking in her haggard features and stiff movements. "You should get some rest. You gave the pictures to Sloane?"

Sydney nodded. "And told him K-Directorate had destroyed the journal almost immediately after I took the pictures. He seemed convinced."

"Good. I'll see you later."

* * * *

Sydney lay back against her pillows, rummaging through some photographs of her as a child. She smiled at a picture of her dancing with her father, but the smile quickly faded. "If I'd seen a picture of her and someone told me it was me, I would've believed them, no question." The words echoed through her head, unbidden, haunting in their truth. When she'd first seen the other woman, she'd experienced a disorienting loss of identity. Now, it came back in force. All these pictures, all these memories-were they even her own? Had her mother even loved her, or had she loved another little girl with brown eyes and bouncing pigtails?

Part of her protested that she was being foolish, that of course her mother had loved her. But she couldn't be sure anymore. Martin Shepard had once told her that he felt he'd been stolen from himself. No words could better describe the ache in her heart. She couldn't even blame SD?6 this time.

Sydney felt tears rise in her eyes and quickly brushed them away with a trembling hand. She carefully placed the photographs back in her memory box and buried her face in her pillow. Why couldn't things go back to the way they were? Before SD-6 had recruited her, before she'd told Danny her secret and he'd been murdered, before she'd become a double agent, before everything she'd known and loved and trusted had fallen apart in her fingertips.

What was truth and what was reality anymore? Maybe everything in our lives is a lie, she thought bitterly, and we're so desperate to believe in something that we call it truth and live by it.

No, she couldn't accept that. Her love for Danny, that had been truth. That *was* truth. Sydney touched the engagement ring she still wore, clinging to it like a child clings to a loved teddy bear as the world around them collapses. She'd come through more difficult trials before. She would find out who this woman was, figure out how to deal with it, and continue on with her life. She owed it to everyone around her. She owed it to herself.

* * * *

Journal,

So, I did it. I saved her. Father looked so worried when he sent me out after her-I don't think it's crazy to think some of that worry was for me. I shouldn't even be writing here, not about this, so I won't go into detail about my mission. But suffice it to say that my training paid off beautifully! I had to pass the ultimate test, to save both our lives, and I stepped up to the challenge and I *succeeded.*

The shock on her face made me immensely proud, and yet supremely sad at the same time. Proud, because I made myself so like her that even she was shocked; sad, because now I know she was never told about me. Where I grew up constantly hearing about Sydney and constantly trying to live up to her impossible goodness, she grew up free from any such burden.

I suppose I am jealous. Can anyone truly blame me? My very name means "born during the father's time of hardship," which I was, as I have been told throughout my life. He'd lost the love of his life, and his daughter.

Not me. Her. He never even mentioned me.

Yours,
Kesi