5

Time in seclusion: 25:14:18

"So Francie's just going to open this restaurant? Previous experience be damned?"

Sydney brought her glass up to her lips and motioned for her father to give her a second as she swallowed the piece of steak she'd been chewing and chased it down with a sip of ice water. Glimpsing across the table at Jack, she suppressed a smile when she saw him struggling to slice through an especially tough portion of his meat.

Lunch had been an under whelming offering of macaroni and cheese, which they'd both consumed in relative silence, neither wanting to admit what they were thinking. (Sydney: how her mother always used to make her macaroni and cheese when she was home sick from school; Jack: how Laura always used to make Sydney macaroni and cheese when she was home sick from school.)

And when it came time to prepare dinner, they hadn't really been looking forward to the task. But it had turned into an unexpectedly cheerful affair when Jack had discovered two New York steaks hidden in the freezer below several Swanson dinners. Seasoning them with his own special combination of spices, Jack popped them into the oven and later presented them to Sydney as a 'feast,' a term that had made her laugh. Unfortunately, he'd left them in the oven a bit longer than he should have.

That, however, hadn't dampened their high spirits. They'd sat down across from one another at the kitchen table and, although a little uncertain at first as to how to strike up a conversation, they'd soon found themselves chuckling as they traded funny anecdotes (centered around school and friends for Sydney, and missions and former operative partners for Jack). There were no awkward pauses or stilted attempts at repartee. Just a comfortable dinner between what felt like two old friends.

"Well," Sydney said, in response to Jack's earlier questions, "Francie seems really serious about the restaurant. I mean, she's been mentioning wanting to open one since our junior year in college, but this is the first time she's actually done something about it."

"But she's being cautious, right? Contractors are notorious for taking advantage of unsuspecting clients. And I hear the same goes with various government agencies."

"She says she has it all under control. Plus, Will's helping her out with a lot of that stuff."

"Yes, Will." Jack drew out the Ls in the name and lost his grin for the first time that night. "How is he doing?"

"I don't know," Sydney said with a sigh, the bags underneath her eyes growing darker as she exhaled. "He claims to be fine. Says so all the time. But…I don't know. I'm worried about him. It just doesn't seem possible that he's adjusted to everything so quickly. Do you remember what I did when I found out about Danny and SD-6?"

Jack bobbed his head and shifted his eyes down to his plate. How could he ever forget his frantic calls to her apartment? The way the line would always ring three and a half times before the answering machine would kick on and he'd be left listening to the banter on Sydney and Danny's playful outgoing message? He could still recite that message line for line.

"I'd been a spy for years by then and was used to dealing with the unexpected. But Will, he's…he was a reporter and now he's lost everything, but he's walking around as if none of that – his job, his reputation, his life – mattered to him. And that worries me. I'm afraid he's going to wake up one morning and it's all going to come crashing down on him at once." Sydney pushed what was left of her peas and carrots around her plate with the tines of her fork and began to chew on the inside of her right cheek.

"He's strong," Jack reassured her, empathizing with how she currently felt. He knew she blamed herself for Will's downfall, and he blamed himself as well. "He'll come through all this."

"I hope so." Shoving her plate away from her, Sydney ran a finger down the side of her tumbler of water and wished for a bottle of wine or, for that matter, anything alcoholic. It was wrong that the strongest thing in the house was a container of instant coffee. "He's lost so much," she lamented. "And even though it's nice to have someone around I can talk to – sort of – seeing him reminds me of everything that's happened in the past year, especially Danny's death. I mean, if I hadn't told Danny about SD-6, they wouldn't have killed him, and then Will wouldn't have needed to investigate his death. So much could have been changed if I'd just made a different decision."

Without lifting his eyes from his plate, Jack watched Sydney absently sip her water and look off into the distance, her mouth falling into a frown, her eyes sad and laden with concern. He was the one who'd gotten Will to mention 'The Circumference' to Khasinau's men. She didn't deserve to shoulder so much of the blame herself.

"Sydney, I'm sorry that—" He clamped his jaws shut just as his apology for involving Will in his scheme to smoke out the CIA mole was about to leave his mouth. You can't do it, can you, Jack? You just can't say you're sorry. "I'm sorry I overcooked the steaks," he mumbled with disgust as he leaned across the table to pick up her discarded plate.

"What? No. Dinner was fine. Great, even. I hadn't meant to—"

"It's okay. The meat was too dry."

"Really, Dad, dinner was great. Thank you for cooking it. And thank you for listening to me worry about Will. I don't…I don't really have anyone I can discuss this with, so thank you."

Jack had his back to her and was in the process of filling the small sink with bubbles to wash the dishes when he suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap around his chest. The coarse ends of Sydney's hair tickled his exposed neck as she rested her head on his shoulder and whispered, "Thank you for everything."

He sucked in a short gasp of air and held his breath. His heart wrenched.

Isn't this a nice father-daughter scene? Makes you actually believe you look out for her, doesn't it? That you've never lied to her? Or used her? The irony's almost devastating, isn't it? Ripping her arms away from his body, Jack broke free of her embrace, his face twisted in anguish. "She did," he spat, almost as if the words were hot coals that had been burning his mouth.

"Who? What?" Sydney furrowed her forehead and reached for his arm.

Flinching before a finger touched him, Jack clarified, in a tumble of words, "Your mother. When you were little, she did come back for you."

"What?" She stumbled backwards, all sense of balance lost until she bumped into one of the table's chairs. "She…came back for me?" Hurt and confusion filled her eyes. "And you never told me?"

"It's not what you think. She didn't come back because she wanted to—"

"YOU NEVER TOLD ME?" The accusation reverberated off the walls and window.

"Let me explain," Jack ordered, his face impassive, vacant, despite the anxiety churning within him. "You were eight at the time and it was a few days before Christmas. I still had some shopping left to do, so I drove us to the Pasadena Mall."

Little by little, Sydney began to remember snippets from that day. Rivulets of water trailing down a car window. The tinny chimes of the bell from a Salvation Army volunteer outside of the mall's main doors. Tugging on her father's hand and begging to pay another visit to Santa and his elves. "It was…raining?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes."

"And we were at…a Macy's?"

"Yes."

"You said you were shopping for a co-worker."

"It was a gift for Sloane. I was looking at ties."

"I…" She recalled staring at rack after rack of pants and coats on hangers. There'd been so many of them and she'd been so bored. "I was standing right next to you and heard…something. A little boy crying, I think. And I looked away from you for a second, but when I turned back around, you were gone."

"You wandered away." Liar. You walked away from her. Jack jerked his face to his left, almost as if the voice in his head had slapped him.

"I wandered away from you?" Here Sydney scrunched her eyebrows. Her memories weren't matching up with this piece of information. "But I don't… Are you sure?"

"Yes." Liar! You saw her turn her head and knew that was your chance to leave. You followed Devlin's orders and left her behind, alone.

Jack forced himself to remain aloof, to hide from Sydney how much he wanted to break her gaze and turn away from her eyes. He knew they were focused on his in search of comfort, but he felt as if they were damning him. "When I looked down for you, you were gone. I tried to find you, but…" You joined the other CIA agents hiding in a nearby men's dressing room and watched as your little girl realized she'd been abandoned. You saw the tears fall down her cheeks. You saw the panic creep into her eyes and, even though it tore at your heart, you did nothing because all you could think about was how much you wanted to entrap Laura, how much you wanted her to pay for hurting you. His voice cracked as he lamely finished, "…you'd disappeared."

Sydney could feel the fear she'd felt that day course through her body. She'd been so scared. Everywhere she'd turned she saw mothers and fathers protectively holding on to their children's hands, but none of those grown-ups had been her father. She'd wanted to sit down on the floor and weep. Memories of her mother had been growing fainter with each passing year and now she'd lost her dad? Why was she always getting left behind? And just as she'd been about to allow despair to take her over, an alarm had gone off.

"Someone was caught shoplifting," she now whispered as unfocused images flickered before her closed eyes.

Jack dropped his head as the events of that day replayed in his mind. The clanging security alarm that abused their eardrums. The commotion of salespeople rushing to the exit that flashed a bright red light. Parents screeching as they pulled their children closer to them. All of that had come as a surprise to his men. They'd been trained to keep their attention focused on the task at hand at all times, but even he'd been distracted by all the noise. And when he'd looked back to where Sydney had been standing, she was gone. That was when he'd known the truth: Devlin's intel had been accurate; Laura was back in the States, back in Los Angeles. But instead of using Sydney to capture your wife as you'd hoped to do, she'd used you to get to her daughter. Laura had fooled you. Again. And you'd failed Sydney. Again.

"You remember that?" he asked, his voice thin and slightly tremulous.

"Yeah. Because while I was looking at everything that was going on around me, this saleswoman appeared out of nowhere. She asked if I'd lost my dad and then said she'd help me find him. She told me to follow her to quieter section of the department." Pausing for a moment to mull over what she'd just said, Sydney's eyes flew open and her lips parted to form an oblong O. "She asked me if I'd lost my dad. How did she know I was there with you?"

"That saleswoman was your mother," he said, his voice listless. You set Sydney up, Jack. You handed her to that woman.

"She was my—" Her voice hitched in her throat as she tasted bile. "But how? I don't— I didn't recognize her."

"She was well disguised. She didn't want you to know it was her." Are you going to tell her how you know that? Are you going to admit that Laura swooped right in under your nose? Gritting his teeth, Jack held his breath and attempted to smother the voice in his head. "She didn't come to be with you, Sydney. She came to send me a message." And do you remember what it said? "Don't play games with me, Jack. You'll always lose."

"A-a message?" Her heart and mind were racing and, more than anything, she wanted their conversation to end, for the pain to subside. But she couldn't stop the questions from rolling off her tongue.

"A warning, actually," he growled as he forced his ire to come flooding up to the surface. Yes, get angry because that'll justify everything you did. "Do you remember this woman handing you something right before she left you at a cashier counter?"

"A slip of paper," Sydney murmured, her chin tucked down into her chest, her gaze focused on her bare feet. "She said it was a coupon to thank me for being such a good girl."

"It was a threat. A way for her to let me know she was watching."

"But why? Why would she want you to know that—"

"Because she's your mother!" he snarled. "And she's never wanted either of us to have any peace. But I wanted you to have that peace, so I never told you this. I…I wanted you to be able to believe your mother was…the kind of person you wanted her to be." No, Jack, you never said anything to her earlier because you didn't know how to tell her the truth, how to face her and admit that you'd sent her, a young, innocent, defenseless, little girl, into the lion's den. You know the note Laura handed to Sydney wasn't a threat. It was simply a mother's reproach to stop gambling with her daughter's life.

"Then why are you telling me this now?" The strangled cry in her high-pitched voice forced the tears building in her eyes to overflow onto her cheeks. "How does this change anything? I already think—"

"Despite what you say, Sydney, I know you!" His forcefulness made her recoil. "I'm telling you this because you need to understand how your mother works. You can't let your emotions rule you. You have to accept this information and use it to see your mother for who she truly is. She left you not once, but twice. She never hesitated. She never wondered how that would affect you. You need to stop holding on to the fond memories you have of her. Laura Bristow never existed. She's a fallacy and you will only open yourself to more pain until you let that fallacy go. She left you." And you used her, risked her life. Which is the more grievous offense?

With her vision blurred and her heart pounding faster than she knew it should, Sydney swiped at her searing eyes with the back of her hand and lurched for the door. "I can't— I can't listen to this," she whimpered.

"You have to."

"No! You don't… You don't understand." With her arms quavering and her knees threatening to give out on her, Sydney ran to her room and threw the window open, a cool breeze bathing her feverish face. To know her mother could come back and see her and still leave? While also using her as a pawn to continue tormenting her father? It tainted everything. Christmas mornings…carousel rides…giggles while baking cookies… It tainted everything.

Back in the kitchen, Jack could hear Sydney's muffled sobs and set his mouth into a stubborn, straight line. "She needed to know. She needs to know the truth," he attempted to tell himself with conviction, but the almost inaudible words barely made it past his lips. Yes, Jack, she does. But you didn't tell her the truth. Not all of it.