A/N: Sorry I'm a little late with the update, but I was working on a piece for the Cover Me April challenge. It's an Irina fic, and I think it turned out okay :) so if you like the way I write and want to go see it, it's called Genesis and you can find it in the Cover Me archives or, preferably, on ff.net at so you can leave me some comments. Enjoy the new chapter and, hopefully, Genesis too!

Chapter Eight
Time

* Just like me you got needs
And they're only a whisper away
And we softly surrender
To these lives that we've tendered away

But I would not sleep in this bed of lies
So toss me out and turn in
And they'll be no rest for these tried eyes
I'm marking it down to learning
I am *
--Bed of Lies, Matchbox Twenty

It was four agonizing days, eight endless hours, and twenty-nine restless minutes before they found the first traces of Sydney's trail; five unbearable days, two excruciating hours, and forty-eight intolerable minutes when they landed in Berlin; six insufferable days, fourteen impatient hours, and seven bleak minutes when he found himself alone in a bar, staring the through the inch or two of liquid into the bottom of his glass, once again at the end of his leads and no sight of Sydney in almost a week.

"Excuse me," a voice dipping into an almost over-exaggerated Southern United States accent interrupted his stupor with sugarcoated vocals. "I couldn't help overhearing you speaking to the bartender and by your pronunciation--well, it's always nice to meet a fellow American when you're out of the country."

He gestured vaguely to the vacant stool next to him. "I'd be honored."

She alighted with nimble poise on the seat and rested her chin in her hand as she leaned on the counter, her face drawing in close to his with blatant forwardness. "If you don't mind my sayin', honey," she stated, not caring at all if he minded or not, "You look blue."

He hunted below the fringes of blond bangs until he finally encountered a pair of alluring brown eyes. "Do I?" he resisted with a sharp, self-mocking edge.

"Yes. So, what's bothering you?" He opened his mouth to tell her it was nothing she needed to worry about, but she cut him off with a shake of her head. "No. Don't tell me. Let me guess: girl trouble?"

He could feel the blood rising to his face, turning it a rich crimson hue. He focused his gaze on the surface of the bar, biting the inside of his cheek as he reminded himself that this wasn't Sydney he was speaking to, they were just two strangers meeting for the first time.

"You could say that."

"Tell me about it." She laid a hand that held no familiarity on his back, extending the most sympathy any human being can give another; she was too good at this game of pretending. One set of lashes descended in a slow, encouraging wink, "Comfort of strangers and all."

He let another swallow of his drink soothe his throat, then set his glass aside with an audible click in the expectant silence.

"There's this girl." He couldn't manage to tear his eyes away from the woodwork in front of him; in the light reflecting there he was building an image of the woman beside him with blue eyes, any color but brown. He knew if he only glanced up he would demolish the unknown person's likeness he was composing and make it impossible to say the things he's been meaning to, the things he could never bring himself to say to her face.

"Mmm-hmm."

"She's amazing; beautiful, intelligent, compassionate--amazing. But the problem was we worked together, company policy against interoffice dating and all that." He paused, searching for conformation that she understood what he was implying, and out of the corner of his eye he caught the bobbing of her hair in a curt nod to spur him on. "Things...happened, and we started a relationship anyway, and it was wonderful, perfect."

"I think I see where this is heading..."

"No, no, you probably don't. It's not your average love story; in some ways it was above all that petty drama. What actually took place was that she...took a position with another company...without telling me first. But not just a company--I could have handled her decision if it were any other company--but she chose the rival of the one I'm working at. So, now if we're seen together I could lose my job." Or life, or freedom. How many years in prison could they give him for aiding and abetting the enemy?

"Well if you ask me, you should just give up. She's not worth all this trouble."

Her nonchalant comment shocked him into a reaction, his head and shoulders jerking violently up to deliver a straight-on, bewildered stare, only to find her giving him her most seductive smile that promised she meant every word and none of it at all.

"Do you want to go somewhere else? I know this cozy little place..."

"You know what? I'd like that." He returned her smile unreservedly, at last ready to take part in her charade.

He reached for his wallet as he was in the process of standing up, preparing to pick up the tab for his drink, but her gentle hand on his wrist arrested the motion. "This one's on me. One woman paying for another woman's sins."

There were so many meanings to her words, and for a moment he got a flicker of Irina's face the way he had first seen her--the way she should have stayed--behind layers of glass. 'You look just like him.'

"Thank you," he told her daughter in the present.

She merely smiled, unaware of the image in his mind, and gathered up her purse as she led the way out. He only suspended his pursuit of her for a faltering footfall when they passed the darkest corner of the room; the sliding light as he moved revealed just a sliver of an eye and a cheek before recovering it again, but it was enough to stir his memory and waver his stride. His instinct would have made him to turn back and investigate, but her enticing hands were there on his arm, drawing him forward, and that was more than he could refuse.

The entrance funneled them out into an alley, and their pace quicken some as they crossed the threshold in their haste to reach its darkest, most obscure end with out being seen. As soon as she was sure no one else was around, Sydney threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his ear, "I missed you."

He defied his urge to hold her back for a minute, simply to prove to himself that he was capable of withstanding her hold over him, before he moved to envelop her waist, his other hand diving into the wig he wished he could pluck off. He dragged in a long breath, her scent filling his nostrils, as he prepared himself to use the careful words he had been choosing almost since he had last seen her.

"We need to talk."

She sagged within in his grasp. "We do, don't we?"

The bar's door opened a square of artificial light in the dim surroundings, causing them both to freeze as they were, and emitted three patrons into the night, laughter spilling too easily from their throats.

When the trio was far enough away, he leaned in to whisper, "Now that we've agreed...can we go someplace," he eyed the door suspiciously as it swung out again, "where we'd be less likely to be overheard?"

They found the cheapest hotel they could purely for the undeniable fact that the least expenses are the hardest to trace. Somewhere along the way, though, he lost his resolution and his head lowered to hers, his lips tracing a line from her forehead, across her eyelids, and along her nose until he found her mouth.

Her hands climbed to clamp around his shoulders, even as she pushed away, beaming impishly through the distant she had created at him, "What happened to talking?"

He shook his head, luring her face back to his own with a forefinger placed under her chin. "There'll be time to talk in the morning; there's always too much time for talking."

And then there was no reason to talk any longer.

The door swung in under his touch, and the darkness in the room gave the impression of welcoming them in, the shadowy outline of the bed, the lamp stand, and the television all seeming to demand, 'What took you so long?'

The truth was, he didn't know.