Chapter Forty-one: An Open Mind

"Now," said Sark, looking from Sydney to Michael and back again. "I believe I can grant you a few minutes with your son now, if the two of you promise to behave." He shot a pointed look at Michael, who clenched his hands into fists.

Sydney looped an arm through her husband's, offering him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. He frowned slightly in response. She wished they could have a chance to talk alone; she felt like she needed to discuss strategy with him before they went any further.

Sark led the two of them down the hall to a door not unlike Emily's, stopping to rap on it. "Jack? Your parents would like to see you."

"Fine," came Jack's terse reply from the other side of the door. Sydney supposed it was better than Emily's cries of "Mom! Daddy!," but then, Jack had only been apart from them for a little more than an hour.

"Hey," Jack said once Sark, Sydney, and Vaughn had entered the room, rising from the double bed that rested in the middle of the room. "Have you seen Emily?"

"Yes, sweetie. She's…fine," Sydney said, shooting a sideways glance at Sark. He nodded encouragingly.

"You sound weird," Jack said bluntly. "And why are you looking at him? Who the hell are you, anyway?" Jack demanded of Sark. "Besides my grandmother's little lackey?"

"Listen--" Sark began, but Sydney cut him off.

"Could we speak to our son alone, Sark?"

"I hardly think that's--"

"Please," Sydney cut in. "There's a few things we need to explain to him that we'd really like to be alone for."

Sark stared at her for a long moment, considering.

"We understand…how things work around here," Sydney said. That you, Mother, and Sloane run the show…that the three of us are your slaves… "We won't tell him anything inappropriate, I assure you."

Sark nodded slightly. "I'll be back for you shortly, Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn."

"What the hell, Mom?" Jack demanded as soon as the door had closed behind Sark. "You have to ask his permission to speak to me alone? He's nothing but a--"

"He has us in a rather difficult position, Jack," Sydney said, perching gingerly on the edge of his bed. She looked up at Michael, who stood close to the doorway, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his dress pants. "You act as if you disapprove of the way I've been behaving, Michael."

"I'm sorry, but it's hard to see you acting as if you just accept all of this," Michael said, voice tight with anger. "You're acting like Irina's simpering little servant, just like you did when we were at the Organization."

"I just don't see a lot of other options for us, Mike," Sydney said, bristling at the simpering little servant comment but deciding to let it go. "We need to play along with them, at least for now."

Michael sighed, running a hand back through his light brown hair. "I just know how you get, Syd," he said, beginning to pace the room. "You'll do the right thing when it comes down to it, but you got awfully damned comfortable at the Organization the first time around, and I'd hate to lose another decade of our lives to Irina and Sark."

"Are you saying it's my fault we lost a decade to them before?" Sydney demanded, horrified, at the exact same instant Jack asked, "What the hell is going on?"

Michael bit his lower lip, looking as if he were fighting mightily to control his temper. "It's not your fault that we lost a decade to them, no, Syd. It was an impossible situation. But when placed in an impossible situation, you do tend to forget who you're working for."

"You son of a bitch." If Michael would have been close enough, she would have slapped him. "Did I forget who I was working for when I was working to take down SD-6?"

Michael didn't answer, and Sydney stood and crossed the room, grabbing him by the shoulders. "You listen to me, Michael, maybe I'm a little bit better at compartmentalizing my emotions than you are, maybe I'm pretty damned good at acting like I'm on the bad guys' side, but I have never forgotten who I really am, and I hate that you don't know that."

"You guys," Jack broke in, a stricken expression painted across his handsome face. Sydney realized that he had probably never heard the two of them argue over anything more serious than whether or not he or Emily should be punished for this infraction or that, whether or not to redecorate the restaurant. "Listen, Sark's coming back soon, maybe we had better come up with a plan."

Sydney shook her head. "Michael, I need you on my side here," she said, turning her attention back to her husband. "And if you blame me for something, if you-- God, if you doubt my loyalty--" she hated that such a thing was even a possibility. "--then we had better get it out on the table now."

Michael was silent for a long moment. "I don't doubt your loyalty, Sydney," he said, his voice low. "I know how you feel about your mother and Sark, and that the only reason you'd even pretend to cooperate with them is to protect me and the children. But I hate that we're in this situation, and I hate how defeated and compliant you behave when you're around your mother. I know it's just an act--" he tilted her chin up so that she was looking at him. "--but I also know that it gets to you. It was unfair for me to say that you forget who you're working for, but you do let yourself lose hope, believe that there's no way out. I'm seeing that from you already, and I hate it."

"Oh, Michael," Sydney said, feeling her eyes flood with tears. "You're always so optimistic, you always believe that everything's going to work out for the best."

"And you hate that," Michael said softly, looking away.

"No," Sydney said firmly, touching his cheek and guiding his face back to look at her. "I think it's a bit naïve sometimes, but I hope you never lose that optimism. It's the only thing that keeps me from-- from wallowing in my own self-pity, from turning into some kind of a monster."

"You could never be a monster, Sydney," he said, pulling her close to him and wrapping his arms around her. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to spend a moment lost in his embrace, feeling as safe and protected as she always did in his arms.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you, too," he said, kissing her forehead. "So much."

He released her from his embrace, and she wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Now, Jack," he said, taking his wife's hand in his. "There are some things we need to tell you so that you'll be prepared, okay? Do you think we have enough time?" he asked Sydney.

"I think we can put Sark off for a few minutes if he comes back," Sydney said with a sigh. She wished more than anything that they had ignored her mother's command to bring Jack with them, that they would have faced whatever consequences of not doing so alone. But then, hindsight was always twenty-twenty, and they couldn't have been sure what they would have done to Emily if they had ignored an instruction. They wouldn't have physically harmed her, but God knew there were millions of worse things the could have done to her.

Michael led Sydney over to the bed, and the two of them sat side by side, holding hands. "Now, Jack," Michael said. "You're not going to like what we have to tell you. But I'm going to ask that you keep an open mind."