A/N: The end of the school year is approaching, which means, inevitably, finals are here as well. What I'm getting at is that I just want to warn you that you may or may not get your update next weekend depending on how much studying I do. On a happier note, today happens to be your author's birthday! So, don't go out and buy me anything expensive, but a few nice reviews would be wonderful...and I know you'll want to leave me some words after you see how I end this chapter ;)

Chapter Twelve

Bait

Irina reached out across his line of vision for the metal folding chair Sloane had left behind; it unfolded under her touch, and she dragged it in front of him, fully opened, across the grainy, uneven floor, the metal grating and whining and protesting the whole way with the same effect as nails on a chalkboard. As she bent into the curves of the chair, her eyes never left his face in that unnerving way they had of boring into him, through him.

"You broke your promise to me." No preamble or salutations. Irina rarely expended the energy it took to be anything but direct.

In the way they always did, his gaze glanced off her face and skittered to the side, to the ground; it was easier to speak to her, to keep his reasoning unruffled, if he didn't look directly at her. It was like staring straight into the sun, it did more harm than good. "You still got what you wanted, didn't you? The Rambaldi, Sydney."

"It's the principle of the thing, that you would have had all the information you needed and left me with nothing in return."

"And you've never broken a promise to anyone?" A sharp, humorless laugh accompanied the statement.

"Don't attempt to lecture me on my morality. I know very well where I stand. But in my defense, I have kept one promise over the years."

"Oh, really. And what was that?" He was bitter, mocking, but his heart beat a little more erratically, knowing what was coming next.

"I made a promise a long time ago to a man--a man who looked a lot like you. He begged--begged--for his family's life, for his son; they always do, assuming with their selfish notions that I have the time to track down everyone around them. But something about him...struck me, in all his earnestness and integrity, so I promised him I would never lay a hand on his son. Now, I am beginning to think that maybe I should not have been so true to my word."

The air filled, shifted with her wistful sigh. "It must be wonderful, to have someone care that much about you."

"I wouldn't know. He died when I was so young."

"You know that's not what we're discussing anymore," came the sharp reprimand.

Yes, he knew. He had sensed the swing in the conversation, the abrupt switch in subject that Irina used to throw people off their guards, but she had crossed into territory he was reluctant to traverse. "I guess it is wonderful," he relented evasively.

She seized on his answer, "Then tell me why you're still here, tell me why Sydney is still waiting to finish Sloane. Why hasn't she taken you away yet?"

He turned his head, unable to manufacture a cutting response, as she imitated the questions that had been haunting him.

"Nothing to say? Well, why don't we play game, then," her voice taunted him.

"I'm tired of games, especially yours."

"It's not hard to play. All you have to do is sit very still and be quiet. Do you think you can do that for me, Michael?" Her unprecedented abuse of his first name sent abhorrence through him, the way she used it reducing him to a small child.

The door wailed as it opened, and he wrenched his head upwards to stare at the new visitor, but Irina never moved, never reacted, something akin to a smile shaping her lips.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

She didn't turn, didn't lift her eyes from him. "I had expected you sooner, Sydney."

"What are you doing?" Sydney repeated, her voice rising to a frantic keen.

"How much are you willing to give up, Sydney? How much would you give up for him?" She waved one set of neatly manicured fingernails dismissively at him.

An uncertain silence, Irina waited; she could be patient. "Ev-everything."

"Everything? What about this mission? Your opportunity to destroy the Rambaldi device? Your chance at Sloane...or me?"

Sydney's eyes swiveled anxiously between Vaughn and her mother. A little more firmly, "Everything."

Deftly, before either of the other two in the room realized what was happening, Irina produced a small, dark object and launched it in Sydney's direction. Her daughter caught it instinctively, then brought it up so she could inspect it. A cell phone.

"Go ahead," Irina urged. "Call Agent Weiss. Tell him where you are."

Sydney looked to Vaughn, but he shook his head mutely; he could not make the decision for her, unaware as he was of the happenings outside of his small cell of a room. Only Sydney knew what was best.

She dialed. It seemed every ear in the room strained to hear as the phone rang...and rang...and... "Weiss? It's me." There was an exclamation from the other end that was audible even to Vaughn, as far away as he was, and Sydney winced, holding the receiver away from her face. "No, don't. Just listen very carefully. I'm only going to say this once..." She rattled off an address, and quickly snapped the cover shut before she had to confront any reaction from Weiss, any discomforting questions.

Sydney compressed her lips, and turned to Irina, perhaps looking for a grand revelation as to her motives, but she was greeted with a beatific smile as Irina ascended to her feet. The older woman bowed to the task of removing Vaughn's restraints, and in the same instant he was freed, a gun was shoved into his face. He gaped at it, his mouth half-open, a tremor barreling its way through his abdomen.

"Here." Her voice was gentle, but he sensed that underneath she was laughing at him, the echoes of her mirth shining in her eyes. She pressed the metal even more adamantly at him, and he took it in shaky fingers. "You're going to need that." She straightened, running her hands over her suit in a nervous motion she seemed unable to control. "Now, I need to be gone by the time the CIA gets here." She swung around, bearing down on Sydney. "And you should be too. Go, finish what you meant to do. And if you can't," she shrugged, "the CIA will be here in a matter of time to do it for you."

If she was expecting an answer, there was naught except the hush that rushed up to fill the space after her words; there was nothing left for her to do but gather herself up and start for the door. Yet even as she passed by Sydney, her daughter's hand snaked out to fasten onto her elbow. Irina examined the stern grip, then raised her eyes to encounter a pair that were extraordinarily similar, their gazes catching, and Vaughn suddenly felt as if he were intruding on a moment years in the making.

"What do you want from me?"

"Nothing." Irina shook her head as if to emphasize the point. "Nothing you haven't already done."

"I don't understand."

"You don't need to. Sometimes you just have to trust." Irina lowered her voice even more, the lilt to her tone becoming so alien for a time that it could have been another person entirely. "Take care of yourself. I love you, Sydney. Even when you don't believe it." She shook off Sydney's grasp effortlessly, and Sydney let her, her hands dropping limply to her sides.

And in the span of a breath, Irina was gone.

There was no time for a reunion between Sydney and Vaughn, no time to share their burning questions; they could both feel the looming presence drawing closer, the clock running down as they devised a plan. Sydney would go directly for Sloane where he had been wrapped up in his workroom for several hours, confine him or kill him, whatever was necessary, and destroy the Rambaldi device by any means open to her. Vaughn would distract Weiss and the other agents, stall them until Sydney was gone too far for them to ever catch. He would return to the States with them, go back to his life as it had been, until the two could meet up again weeks, months, maybe even a year from then, whenever they could. Then, then would it truly be over.

She ended up in his arms as he assured her once again that he understood what they were doing. She tilted her chin back, giving an impression that she was looking across a larger gap than the one inch that separated them, her expression darkening with her seriousness. "Don't make me come after you." The warning was laced with desperate humor, but that was only a mask for her real somberness.

"You don't have to worry about that." His words failed to ease the apprehension etched into her mind, so he tried again, this time sweeping her lips with his; it was an ancient kiss, centuries old, the kind given by a warrior going off to war, firm and so sweet it all but brought you to tears, and so, so unavoidably final.

She slipped away and led the way up the stairs, so that she would emerge first to confront anyone that might challenge them. It was because they had arranged themselves that way that she didn't see his legs falter for a moment beneath him, dissenting and dangerously weak after days of nonuse. He grimly clutched the railing, glancing up to make sure Sydney had not noticed, and prayed he would only have to employ his legs to stand his ground.

As they came out into the kitchen of the house--for he could now see it was house that he had been held in, a huge and terribly modern one, probably built by some American millionaire who had craved an overseas home, which had been promptly abandoned and sold to Sloane--the two exchanged one last murmur of farewell and good luck as Sydney took the next flight of stairs upwards and he settled himself into a position where he could see both doors the agents could possibly enter through.

He didn't have to wait long; there was the sound of tires screeching on the driveway, brakes squealing, the open and slam of multiple doors, and only a moment's pause before the front door burst in. As the nine men fanned out in the wood-paneled entrance, Vaughn slid out of his obscured nook, putting the stagger of a lost man into his step as he approached, almost as if he barely knew where he was. There was the distinctive noise of air and metal brushing against each other as came into view, but Weiss raised a commanding hand and after a moment of indecisive hesitation the weapons dropped away to hang inertly albeit threateningly at the agents's sides. "Mike." The tone was warm.

His first genuine smile bloomed. "You have no idea how good it is to see you."

Weiss made a hasty gesture. "We don't have time for that. Just tell me where she is."

He widened his eyes, trying his best to look bewildered. "Who? What are talking about?"

"Sydney. Tell me where she is."

"Sydney? Sydney's here?"

"Don't give me that bullshit. You know exactly where she is."

"I swear I have no idea." He held his hands out in front of his body, mollifying, his eyes on the guns behind his friend, for the first time realizing the peril he was in from his own people. "I haven't seen Sydney. The only person I've seen in days is Sloane. I really thought that this was it, that I was going to die here--"

"Stop. Stop lying. I know what you've been doing, that you've been seeing her. They have the tapes, Mike, base ops has the tapes; the party, the bar, the hotel...they're all there. And every one shows you and Sydney together."

Weiss was never good at bluffing, and to know all that information, every place they had been together, it was impossible that he could have guessed all that. One hand crept to his waistband, waiting there. "How did you know? How did you know to follow me, where I'd been?"

Weiss levered a look at him that was disapproving, like had expected him to have figured it out by now. "Don't you see it yet? Why Kendall relented so easily to you coming along? Surely it wasn't because he trusted you. He knew the girl couldn't resist you. She's proved more than once that she can't leave you behind. You were bait, Mike. Bait. A worm on a hook."

Just as simply as that the pressure was gone, the two sides pulling on him were gone. The CIA's control on him snapped; they had used him without his consent, betrayed his trust and his loyalty, all his years of service meant nothing to them. There was only Sydney now.

He drew the gun Irina had given him, taking in all nine agents in his aim, but even then Weiss held the men back from raising their own guns.

"Put the gun down." Weiss's voice was calm, soothing, coaxing, but Vaughn knew he was afraid. He had to be, no man faced death without the least twitch of doubt. "You don't need it. No one here is going to hurt you." He waved a hand behind him to encompass all of them. "Put it down and take us to Sydney, and I promise it'll be alright again. I'll clear your record, like it never happened. All it takes is one word from you, but I can only give you is this one chance. You have to decide right now. Think of it, we can go home and all this mess will be gone, over."

Nine agents against one man; he could never hold them off, not as long as Sydney needed him to. It would be so effortless to give into that voice, but there was only Sydney now and she needed him to create a diversion. As long as the Rambaldi was destroyed, as long as Sydney escaped, it didn't matter if he ever left this spot; she was all he had left to cling to in the world, not even his best friend who had never said a word of how they were using him, and nothing, nothing was worth giving her over to her doom.

He could create a diversion they would be unable to ignore.

He switched his grip on the gun, lifting it up to lightly press against his temple.

"That's just it. It's never over, it never ends." He closed his eyes, reveling in the sensation of air flowing in and out of his lungs, the quickening of his pulse throbbing below his ear, knowing that it would not last much longer. He tightened his finger on the trigger, preparing himself in his last few seconds. He was so immersed in the remaining span of his life, it never pierced his awareness that someone was screaming his name, one single syllable, over and over...

* Hold on to me love

You know I can't stay long

All I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid

Can you hear me?

Can you feel me in your arms?

Holding my last breath

Safe inside myself

Are all my thoughts of you

Sweet raptured light

It ends here tonight *

--My Last Breath, Evanescence

TBC...