"Why are we walking?" Vaughn asked five minutes later.

"Truth takes time," Irina said cryptically.

"What?" Vaughn questioned.

"Just smile and nod," Sydney advised. Vaughn nodded, but didn't smile. Suddenly, Irina stopped.

"They are near," she said softly.

"How do you know?" Sydney asked.

"Because I'm your mother." Even Jack looked confused at that. Suddenly, from a building just ahead of them, Sloane and Sark walked out. Irina looked calmly triumphant.

"Get them!" Vaughn urged quietly. In unison, all four grabbed handfuls of snow. Before Sloane and Sark even saw their attackers, the snow was being hurled through the air; Sloane and Sark were left sprawled on the ground. Jack ran over, searching his pockets for handcuffs. He came up blank, and looked desperately to Sydney and Vaughn. Sydney searched her pockets as well, and came up with nothing but a pair of sporks. Vaughn began searching his jacket.

"Ah ha!" He crowed proudly, pulling his hand out. He extended his arm to reveal a pair of Chinese finger traps. Jack raised an eyebrow.


"You expect those to hold Sloane and Sark?" Irina asked.

"If they can unplug the CIA coffeemaker without being anywhere near it, I think they can get out of those," Jack agreed. Vaughn frowned.

"Do we have anything better?" Sydney threw out in Vaughn's defense. He smiled at her gratefully.

"Fine… put them on," Jack sighed. Vaughn walked over, pulled Sark and Sloane's arms behind their backs, and put the finger traps on.

"See you get out of that," he mumbled. Sark and Sloane both stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Do you really expect this to keep us here?" Vaughn nodded in earnest.

"Of course. You can't escape those, especially when they're behind your backs!" Vaughn walked back to join Jack, Irina, and Syd. Sloane stared after him

"Curses! Foiled again!" Sark quickly turned and leveled his gaze on Sloane.

"Please, Mr. Sloane, tell me you didn't just say that." Sloane glared at him for a moment.

"We need to get out of here Sark."

"You don't say."

"Yes, yes I do say. Now get to work!" Sloane hissed.

"See, told you it would be ok," Vaughn said. Sydney smiled at him.

"I'm glad you're with us," she said sincerely.

"So am I, Syd…" Under normal circumstances, Jack would likely have beheaded Vaughn at this point. However, Jack was too busy watching Irina attempt to get the snowflakes off of her face, clothes, and out of her hair. She made a truly entrancing image, and Jack found himself getting lost in her…

All of a sudden, they heard a noise and turned around to see what all the commotion was. Just as they turned- being a little slower than usual because of the cold Alaskan air- they saw Sloane and Sark break out of their Chinese finger trap restraints and run like the wind. Knowing it was pointless to run after them, Sydney, Vaughn, Jack and Irina turned and looked at one another.

"This is all your fault Vaughn!" Jack yelled at the younger agent.

"If you hadn't been so busy flirting with my daughter we might have actually been able to keep them in custody and prevent them from destroying the world as we know it!" Vaughn looked imploringly at Jack.

"Sir, I don't think this was entirely my fault, but as a sworn agent of the CIA and as a faithful Boy Scout, I promise to help bring them back into custody. Besides if you also hadn't been making moon eyes at your, um… ahem, wife, and making plans to whisk her off to a private igloo somewhere then maybe we would have been able to keep them here." After this little speech, Syd turned to Vaughn with a half-smile that she hoped only he could see.

"Daddy, Mom, I too vow to bring Mr. Sark and Sloane into custody and even though I wasn't allowed into the Boy Scouts just because I was a girl, I swear to make sure we bring them back! And if that means helping Agent Vaughn and going to New Mexico and Utah because they are both the 47th state of the US and the 47th state alphabetically, respectively, and stopping by the wonderful spa in New Mexico, then I'm in!" She looked triumphantly at her parents. She pleaded a little with her eyes to her mother in hopes that she would help calm her father and let her go with Vaughn to New Mexico. Irina, understanding the look in her daughter's eyes, looked at Jack and put her hand surreptitiously on his very lovely ass.

"Jack, dear, why don't we let the children go to New Mexico and Utah and we stay here and make sure that Sloane and Sark aren't still in the area. We can all make an official vow to bring Sloane and Sark to justice. And then darling," she whispered into his ear so only he could hear her, "we can rent that igloo you were telling me about." She knew she had him hooked and that for the moment he would forget about Syd and Vaughn.

"Ok," Jack relented. "Everyone put their hands in the middle and swear on the sporkifying laundromat and the family's treasured sleeping bag I gave you, Sydney, that you all promise to bring Sloane and Sark into custody if it is the last thing you do."

All at once they said, "We swear on the sleeping bags and sporks in this world to bring them to justice!"

One more chapter and this thing is over!