He found her sleeping in the guest bedroom. Well, she wasn't actually sleeping; just pretending to be. He could tell by the way she lay that she was awake and thinking. "Hey," he whispered into the darkness.

Leaning against the wall, he strained to watch his wife in the moonlight. White beams had forced their way into the room through the partially opened curtains, washing everything in a dim light. He could see it reflecting in her eyes as she stared at him. "Hey," she finally responded.

"Why are you in here?" he asked, although he knew the answer. She was making a statement. They never slept apart, not in their own home. When he was away on assignment, they spent their nights alone, although Will wasn't usually sleeping. He worked in a business that thrived in the darkness.

Her shoulders shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," she whispered. "Now, I--" She sighed and the sheets rustled as her legs moved. "I don't know."

He took a step into the room. "I went to see Amy before I came home. She wasn't happy with me, and she said you wouldn't talk to her."

Francie's laugh was strangled. "I didn't know what to say."

Crossing his arms, he took one more step closer to her. "I didn't either."

Silence filled the room. Finally, she asked the question. "How you could you not tell me?" Francie sat up in the bed, and he could feel the accusation in eyes he couldn't see.

He tried to find the words to answer, but they wouldn't come. After practicing this very scenario so many times in his mind, he should know what to say to her. He strolled over to the window and pushed opened the curtain more. The neighborhood was asleep. Everything was nice and normal. Just like he liked it.

"I envied you the not knowing," he answered. He hadn't known it until he said it. Now, he could taste that envy. It was bitter on his tongue.

"What?" He heard Francie moving again on the bed. He turned and saw that she was sitting just as he pictured, with her arms around her knees. "I thought Sydney was dead, Will. How the hell could you envy that?"

He remembered calling her, lying to her about Sydney. They had been friends then, friends with a hint of something more that neither of them had taken the chance to investigate. She had screamed when he told her that their friend had died in a car crash. Somehow, through his own tears, he had managed to tell her that Sydney and Jack had died instantly. His tears had been real; he knew that Sydney was as good as dead to him. He had mourned the loss of Jack, his friend and mentor, just as much.

"She was dead to you, Francie. She couldn't be hurt anymore, and I wish I had that peace, but to me she was a target. A target I couldn't ask about, a target I would never be told about. You could sleep through the night without worrying about her, but nightmares about what could be happening to her--things I would never knew happened--have haunted me for almost five years."

He stepped closer to the bed and held out his hand. "Do you understand that?"

She stared at him, and he wanted to shiver. He felt like a stranger in his own home. To his own wife. Now, he understood what Sydney had tried to tell him about Paris.

"You looked at me like I was a stranger, Will."

"No, I didn't, Sydney. I mean, I was shocked, but I knew it was you," he protested.

Seeing Sydney in the horrible red wig, watching her take down men twice her size, he had stared at her like she was a stranger. He had stared at her like Francie was now staring at him.

"I don't understand anything anymore, Will. Sydney and Jack are both alive. You knew it. She came to you for help because Jack and some other people have been taken by a man I've never heard of before--"

He put his finger over her lips. "I work for the CIA." It was amazing how easy it was to say the words, to admit what he had tried to hide for so long. Of course, she probably had already figured that much out from his earlier conversation with their "dead" friend. "Sydney and Jack did, too."

He saw Francie mind working. He saw the understanding dawn in her eyes. "SD-6. They helped take down SD-6. That's how you got started on that story."

Will nodded. "Yeah. As many times as you and everyone has asked me, I could never admit how I started researching that story. I could never tell anyone that I always think of it as the 'Daniel Hecht' story."

Francie's gasp filled the air. He nodded as reached out and gently stroked her hands. "I kept researching it, Francie, even after Sydney--and you-- asked me not to." He'd thought a lot about Francie's words as he slid into the world of espionage. She'd tried to warn him that the Kate Jones story would have a bad end. She didn't know how true her words were; she'd thought the bad ending would be seeing Sydney hurt and angered by his actions.

"I wanted her to have answers," he explained. "But she already had them. And by the time I found that out, I was so far in that I had two options: witness protection or recruitment."

He laid his hand on top of hers and told her more of the truth. A part of the truth that might help her understand why he--why they--had never told her the truth. "SD-6 killed Danny because Sydney told him that she worked for them."

Silence filled the air for several moments. "Please tell me that she was one of those that didn't know." She knew all about SD-6; the entire world did now. His stories on the mercenary group had been published in nearly every language around the globe.

"She thought she worked for a black ops division of the CIA."

Francie stared back at him, and he felt as if her eyes were burning into him. "She took off a long time after Danny died."

"She hadn't planned on going back," he informed her. "Sloane gave her a month off, and she took three. She couldn't go back. She didn't believe in what they were doing anymore."

He took in a deep breath. "They tried to kill her."

The moonlight glistened off her tears. "I never even had a clue."

"I didn't either." He looked down at the blanket on the bed. They had found it on their honeymoon. Francie had loved all the different colors in the pattern. "But then Sydney never knew about Jack either until he helped save her that day."

"I thought he imported airplane parts," Francie said with a chuckle. It was not the sound of amusement.

"Exported," he said with a smile. "Syd did, too. Francie, to make a long story short, Jack told her the truth about SD-6 that night. She went and got something that SD-6 wanted so she could get back into their good graces, and then she went to the CIA." He could still hear Jack in his mind telling him the facts about Sydney's life. His mouth had been throbbing and his brain had been spinning from fear and pain and information overload as he waited with Jack for Sydney and Vaughn to return from destroying the Circumference.

"The people she'd thought she was working for," she realized.

He nodded. "Yeah, and it was then that she found out that Jack was a double agent, too."

Even in the dim light, he could see Francie smile, could feel the tension in her body leave. "Remember that horrible movie we watched that time? Oh, what was the name of it? Sydney kept getting upset because they called that one girl a double."

"She's a triple," Will said, trying to sound like Sydney had that night.

"Yeah," she sighed. "I don't remember the plot, the name, or anything, but I remember us laughing at how upset Sydney was about it."

Francie leaned forward and touched her hand to his cheek. "Did you know then?"

He shook his head. "No, not then."

"When?" Her voice told him that she wouldn't take anything less than the truth.

He closed his eyes as memories played across his mind. Sydney jumping through the air, her legs spinning like a helicopter's blades, saving him from a gun being pointed at his head. The evil smile and the feel of the dentist's breath on his face as the man said hello. Somehow, he kept himself from shuddering at the memory. He'd been tortured since, but the horror of the first time remained fresh.

Looking into his wife's eyes, he told her a truth he didn't want to admit. "I was never car jacked."

Francie's eyebrows snapped up, and she shook her head. "But the bruises--"

"An enemy of Sydney's kidnapped me, tortured me, for those six days."

Francie shuddered, but when he reached out to hug her, she pulled away and held up her hand. "You were tortured?"

"Yes," he admitted in a weak voice. He cleared his throat as he decided not to tell her that the same enemy--or almost the same--was now threatening Sydney and him again. He didn't tell her that Khasinau had ordered his kidnapping all those years ago, and he didn't tell her that he was the man who'd kidnapped Jack, Vaughn, and little Will, Sydney's son. "Yes, I was."

Francie stumbled from the bed. Will stood and tried to follow her. "Don't!" She leaned her head against the wall, and he could see that one hand was across her stomach. He could hear her crying, and he wanted to do something, say something, to make it better.

She finally turned to look at him, and he knew from the way she was leaning on the wall that she was using it for support. "Who are you?"

His words in Paris echoed in his mind: "Who are you people?"

"I'm still the same person, Francie," he explained as he walked towards her. "I'm me: Will Tippin. The guy who needs a hug from you the minute he gets home from work. The guy you love laughing with. The guy you watch sappy old movies with."

"The guy who's been lying to me for nine years." The trembling was gone. The words were firm, angry.

"Francie--"

"I need time, Will. Give me some time," she told him. Now, she was pleading with him. The anger was gone. She rested her head back against the wall and stared at him.

He stared back at her, but he couldn't find any words to make her change her mind. Turning on his heels, he walked out of the room and left her alone.

***

End 2/???

A/N: Sorry that this has taken so long. I'm reminded why I don't do WIPs anymore. :) The next part will come much sooner.