Jack slept on the plane. He apparently could do it easily now, but she remembered when he used to have to force himself to sleep. He would tell her about fighting with himself to relax during the flights when he returned home from his numerous trips. "It gives me more time to spend with my girl," he used to whisper before they were married. "It gives me more time to spend with my girls," he used to say as he picked up a squealing Sydney after they were married.

Carefully covering him in an afghan, she walked towards the galley in the back. She poured herself a shot of Vodka and inhaled it. Her nerves refused to be steadied. She reached for a phone and punched in the numbers that would get her in contact with Sloane. She ignored his pleasantries and got to the point. "Jack's with me."

Sloane was silent for a moment. "Voluntarily?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"Arvin, he's saying he doesn't know where Sydney is."

"Do you believe him?"

She looked at the sleeping man and thought about the way he'd held her last night. As if she were a lifeline he was desperate not to lose. "Yes."

"Damn," he muttered. "We'll find her, Irina."

"Of course we will," she answered, hanging up the phone.

Jack's eyes met hers when she walked out of the galley. "Is Arvin going to meet us at the airport?"

She shook her head. "No, we'll be taken to his home."

Jack closed his eyes. "Good."

"Jack, he doesn't know where she is."

"Of course he doesn't," he replied.

She was suddenly so tired of the game. "He doesn't."

On the way to the airport, he had told her what the CIA knew. In a dispassionate voice, he talked about voice mail messages, shattered glass and blood. Tippin was in critical condition at a hospital, an ambulance called for him by Sydney. Jack had played the 911 call over and over again, listening to his daughter beg for help for her friend. Listened knowing that the 911 operator was the last known person to have talked to Sydney.

Allison, the fake Francie, was in stable condition and surrounded by FBI agents. She had refused to talk however, even to him, although he knew that he had managed to rattle her far more than any other agent had managed. Irina, knowing them both, knew that Jack Bristow was one of a very small group of people that could cause fear in Allison.

Sydney, however, was not to be found. Her blood was everywhere in the apartment. Jack talked about looking at each dried spot, wondering if it came from their daughter. He talked about the bloody door handle, opened by Sydney, and the missing car keys and the left-behind purse. Her car had been found near a bus station, Sydney's bloody palm prints all over the steering wheel.

She sank on her knees beside him. "Jack, what are we going to do?"

"We're going to look for her. Unlike Kendall and the CIA," he said with a hint of steel.

He'd also told her about the CIA's refusal to spend any more resources on finding one agent, albeit an excellent one. Jack had told her Kendall's declaration that she was missing--he didn't finish the thought, but she knew exactly what Kendall believed. He was too much of an "in the box" thinker, and logic said that Sydney Bristow was not alive.

She had always preferred to listen to instinct herself. "Arvin doesn't have her. He couldn't have," she whispered.

Jack pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. "We'll know soon enough."

Irina settled her stomach through force of will. Now was not the time to lose control. Everything was too dangerous, especially since she was bringing two volatile men together. She started to stand and froze when his eyes met hers. "I never hated you, Jack."

He chuckled but it wasn't a sound of amusement. "Yes, you have. I'm the only person--outside of Sydney, which is different--who can disturb your focus." His hand stroked her hair again. "Just like you are the one person who can disturb mine."

The honesty again. It made her shiver, made her instincts scream. A Jack this open, this honest, would not be playing games with her. Jack, even for the CIA, would never make himself so vulnerable before her.

As she walked away, she thought of the effect his words were having on her, and she wondered which one of them was truly the vulnerable one.

***

Sloane smiled at him. "Jack," he said, acting as if Jack had only been on vacation instead of working with the enemy to bring him down.

Jack admired what the man had managed to accomplish in such a short time. The villa where they were screamed of elegance and money. The men with hidden guns spoke of trained power. Jack noticed their presence the moment the gates had opened for the stretch limo that had picked him and Irina up at the airport. He didn't care about Sloane's wealth or his power. He came here for answers.

The barrel of his gun was pressed against Sloane's forehead before anyone could stop him. "Jack!" Irina said, taking a step forward.

"Stay back," he said. To his surprise, she listened.

Sloane's eyebrows shot up. Obviously, he was surprised, too. "Hello, Jack," he said, looking calmly at the man holding a gun to his head.

"Do you have my daughter?"

"Why would I kidnap Sydney?"

"You wanted me to work for you again."

"I wanted your loyalty and your friendship. I can't get either by hurting her. I told you, Jack, if I knew what it would've cost me, I would have never recruited her. I've learned my lesson."

Jack wasn't interested in listening to Sloane's apologies for ancient sins. He wanted an answer to his question. "Do you have my daughter?"

"No."

He didn't want to believe him. He didn't want to, but he did. He lowered his gun and felt his shoulders slump. Irina's arms wrapped around him. "We'll find her, Jack."

"And I'll help you," Sloane offered.

He didn't have the strength to ask his former friend what the cost would be. He knew Arvin Sloane would demand payment. It was his way. He might even demand Jack's soul. But if he could bring his daughter back home safely, he was more than willing to pay that price.

***

Irina watched as Jack made his way to the bed and fell into it. She walked out of the shadows of the room, and Jack sighed when he saw her. She realized he had known she was in the room the moment he entered it. So much for her attempt to watch him undetected.

Walking over to the bed, she studied the man in front of her. He had lost weight. His face was close to being gaunt. The added lines etched in his face made him age prematurely.

Kicking her leg over, she straddled him. "Jack, you need to get some rest."

He shook his head. "I can't."

"It's been four months, Jack." They both knew what that meant. The missing were usually found quickly, if they were found at all. Four months could be a lifetime in their profession. And if she was alive . . .

He tensed beneath her. "I can't give up."

She nodded her understanding, pushing her hair behind her ear as she tried to think of what to say. She understood the feelings that drove him. Every night she cried in her bed. She had spent hours, days, at the beginning turning over every rock, slowly accepting that the man beneath her was too desperate, too full of despair, to be pretending.

Sydney was missing, and four months later, they were no closer to finding her.

His hands reached up and cupped her face. The pressure behind his touch was almost painful, but he made sure not to hurt her. He forced her to look him in the eyes. "Why did you leave her with me?"

For a moment, she was confused. She closed her eyes and remembered the dark days that followed her "escape" from the life of Laura Bristow. "I couldn't take her."

"Don't lie to me, Irina."

She opened her eyes. "I couldn't. It wasn't safe, and I knew you would never let her go. You let me walk away, but you would have never let me walk away with her."

"I thought you were dead."

"You thought it, but I think there were times you doubted it. It's not like you, Jack. You didn't even read the reports filed on me."

"I was grieving."

"And you didn't want to know the complete truth," she said, leaning her forearms on his chest. She could feel his breath on her face.

"I knew enough truth. You'd lied to me."

"Not about everything," she admitted before she could stop herself. The last four months had found her working mostly side by side with her husband. She never admitted to anyone, not even herself, the tiny thrill that had shot through her the day Jack admitted they were still married. It was only a legality, but it mattered to her for reasons she didn't want to examine.

His tired eyes examined her and then he shook his head. "I failed her."

"Jack--"

"I caused all of this."

For a moment, she thought he was admitting his part in a deception. "Jack-- "

"I could've run. I should've run. The day the CIA let me out of that prison, I should've grabbed Sydney and ran to a place where no one could find us."

Irina swallowed the denial she wanted to utter. She would've found them. "You did what you thought was best."

"And look what it did to our daughter."

"You were a good father."

His laughter shook her. "A good father? No, Irina, I was never ever that. Occasionally, I was an acceptable father, but never a good one."

She wanted to argue with him, but looking down at him, she found that she lacked the strength. He wouldn't listen to her arguments anyway. He was so damn stubborn. Just like her.

Her lips meet his before she could think about it. She wanted to offer him comfort, and her body was the only way she could express it. The words were too hard to find.

His hands reached around her, bringing her head closer to him. It felt as if he wanted to inhale her. His lips were everywhere as he flipped her. His groin pressed into hers as he pressed her down onto the mattress.

"I want you," he whispered. He used to say "I love you" at the beginning of their lovemaking, but at least he was talking. The last two times--the first time in Panama and the second time while they mourned Sydney's loss together--he had not said a word the entire time. He'd moaned, he'd groaned, but not a word had passed his lips.

"I want you, too," she moaned as his lips worked their way down her throat.

He licked the spot between the V of her button-up blouse before turning his head and licking the hard nipple through the white cotton. When Sloane had called her earlier to let her know Jack's plane was landing, she had quickly taken a shower and dressed. For some reason, she had left off her bra.

But as his tongue licked across the tautness, she knew why. She wanted to be in his arms, needed to be. She was tired of waking up alone, of crying alone in her bed. Even more, she needed to be with him, needed to know that he slept through the night instead of strategizing and agonizing.

They had spent the last four months together emotionally. They had talked in ways she would not have believed possible had they not been united in fear for their daughter. Jack had laid himself open to her, lacking the strength to use his carefully constructed mask around her. He still wore a shattered version of it around Sloane, around everyone else, but he didn't with her.

And she found her mask slipping around him. He was the man she once loved. Still loved? He was the father of her daughter, the man she trusted with her most precious possession. They had lived together as man and wife for a decade, and by the law of his land, they were still married.

"You always loved your nipples being touched," he muttered as his hand slid down across her free breast. She gasped as his fingers danced across the aching nub. His fingers grasped it and gently squeezed, sending pleasure through her.

"I remember how much you enjoyed--" she started, pulling up his shirt. She stopped when she saw the still-red scar on his shoulder.

He saw where she was looking. "It doesn't hurt," he whispered, starting to lean back down to kiss her.

Putting her hand over it, she remembered the day Sloane told her about Jack's injury. There had been a subtle hint of a grin on Arvin's face. It had only taken her moments to realize why. Jack had killed a CIA officer sent to take him in. He had been injured in the process, but he had forever severed his ties with the agency he had spent decades working for. His loyalty was no longer with them.

Sloane didn't have Jack's loyalty either, but the man was smart enough to know that a man with no master was easier to lure than a man with one. His desire to have Jack back as his friend and faithful ally was known by all. She was unsure of why, and that disturbed her, but she believed she could protect Jack if he didn't have the strength to protect himself.

"You could've been killed."

"Could've been," he agreed, his lips back against her throat.

Fear rose in her chest. "Jack, you have to be more careful."

He paused in the middle of unbuttoning her shirt with his teeth. "I was careful."

She pushed him away. "No, you weren't. Any more than you were careful the night I visited your apartment. You let me put a gun to the back of your head."

"Irina--"

Grasping the sides of his head, she looked into his eyes. "Promise me you'll be careful."

He stared at her for a moment. "Do promises really matter between us?"

"They do to you. You always keep your promises," she said. She leaned forward and kissed him again. This time she didn't let worry or fear stop her from taking what she wanted. What she needed.