If eyeballs could shoot laser weapons, Jack would be dead. Most of the agents sitting with their hands behind their heads and their knees on the floor were looking at him with disbelief, but Kendall was taking this personally. He almost wanted to explain that it wasn't, but he knew the other man wouldn't listen.

"Jack," Will said, unable to remain quiet as Irina and Lance freed Sark.

The operative standing beside him hit him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle before he could say more. Will groaned and slumped over in pain. "Stop," Jack snapped and rushed forward, his gun loose in his hand.

Bending down, he took advantage of the moment. "Meet me at McGuff's on the beginning of the sixth month," he whispered as he helped Will sit up straight.

Will showed no response to the whispered words. "You can't do this, Jack," he said.

"I can, and I am," he replied. Kendall's eyes grew hotter. Looking over his shoulder, Jack saw Irina, Sark, and Lance walk out of the holding area. He nodded to the men he'd brought in with him, and some began putting on gas masks while the others covered the room. Then the remaining put on their masks, followed by Jack, Irina and Sark. Then, Jack and a few trusted others pulled out the canisters and filled the room with a dark green gas.

***

"Do you trust him?" Sark asked.

Irina looked up from the report she was reading. Glancing back at the room where Jack slept, she asked herself the same question. "He helped us extract you."

"That doesn't answer the question."

The young man in front of her looked unaffected by her glare, but then he never had been. It was one reason she respected him. He sat down on the coffee table in front of her. "He's Jack Bristow, Irina. The one man who seems able to get under your skin."

She didn't bother denying; they would both know she was lying. "He's different right now. Raw."

"He could be putting on an act," he reminded her, his eyes hard. "Jack Bristow is a brilliant agent. He could be behind Sydney's disappearance."

Irina thought of the last four months, of the desperate way he had made love to her, how he had acted like the man she married, the one she had only gotten to see in private. She thought about being in his bed for the last four nights, and the way he never rested, constantly twisting and turning, with his forehead knotted in concentration even as he slept. "No. He's not responsible."

"The CIA interrogated me on the issue. It wasn't pleasant. They allowed Vaughn and Dixon to ask the questions. That could've been a part of a larger act."

Irina set down the report next to her and curled her legs under her. "I hope that's the case, but I don't think so."

"Why? Because he says so?"

"Even if the CIA has her, he doesn't know it," she said firmly, letting him know that was not an issue to be debated. "But--we've been looking--Sloane and Jack and I--since she disappeared. Followed every imaginable lead. Some that we knew were foolish even as we raced after them."

She leaned her head forward, allowing her hair to veil her face from him. "Arvin thinks she is either dead or that she faked her own disappearance. I fear that she's dead, because she wouldn't do this to him."

"Who? Vaughn?"

"Jack. Sydney loves him, and he loves her, and I think she knows that now. She wouldn't leave him in hell in an effort to get Sloane."

"She has even more reason to hate Sloane now," Sark reminded her.

"Yes," Irina agreed, masking her fury at the reminder. Sark and Sloane had not shared the details of that plan with her until it was already done. "He murdered her best friend. Almost murdered another. But she wouldn't let him feed on her father if she knew about it."

***

Jack struggled to get the controls to work. Thick polycarbonate doors were between him and Sydney. His daughter was banging on them and struggling to get them open with her fingers. "Daddy!" she was crying.

After so many months, he had finally found her. She was in a large gray sweater, and her hair looked longer, but she was healthy and alive. If only the damn controls would work!

Instinct made him look over his shoulder. "Sydney," he yelled in warning. She turned, but it was too late. The woman beside her had already slid a knife into her side. Sydney didn't make a sound; her face twisted with pain as the blood-covered knife was pulled out of her.

She pressed her hands to her side and then pulled one away. Pressing it against the door, she called "Daddy" as she slid down to her knees. Jack struggled to open the doors, but the controls just wouldn't work.

"No!" he bellowed.

***

Irina shut the door to the bedroom and struggled to hide her reaction. It had taken Jack several minutes to remember that he was on a plane heading back to Europe. He had been lost in the nightmare that had attacked him. Sark stared at her, and she was glad that she had insisted that Lance and the rest of the team travel back on another plane.

"He's asleep again."

"He's falling apart."

She didn't bother to reply. Before she had kicked him out of the room, Sark had seen the trembling man sitting on the bed. "He needs to be getting more sleep. He only sleeps a few hours every night."

"Irina--"

"Don't."

Sark looked down at his clasped hands. "You know that he's dangerous to us."

She thought for a moment and then shook her head. "He's only a danger to himself."

"He really believes she's still alive?"

She closed her eyes and allowed buried memories to surface. "Jack was always a believer. So logical, but so naïve in his belief that good would win in the end. I used to laugh at that naivety, and then I fell in love with it."

Sark looked up at her in amazement. She had spent so much time thinking about Jack's shattered control, the rawness of his feelings, she hadn't thought about her own. Her daughter was missing. Presumed dead by the agency she worked for and almost everyone who knew her. Except Jack.

"You should take some time off. You also need time to grieve and to recover."

Imagining herself on a beach, staring out at the water and thinking about Sydney, Irina felt her tight muscles relax. Then she thought of the man who had shook in her arms a few minutes ago believing he had watched their daughter die in a failed rescue attempt. "I can't."

"When did it become your job to protect Jack Bristow?" Sark asked, apparently understanding her reasons for refusing even better than she did.

Sitting down, she picked up the report and began reading it again. Sark sighed and walked away.

***

Jack almost didn't see him enter. Will Tippin had come a long way in the last six months. The younger man casually walked to the bar, not attracting any attention to himself, and giving Jack the briefest of glances. At one time, he wouldn't have looked at all, but apparently Will had learned that not looking was as noticeable as staring.

Will picked up his Scotch on the rocks. "That was an impressive job you pulled getting Allison out of custody."

Jack looked down at his almost empty class. "It was easier than getting Sark out."

"Rumor has it that you got her out without raising any alarms." Will took another drink. The ice clicked against the glass.

"Rumor's right," Jack replied, taking his own drink. He motioned to the bartender to pour him another.

Blue eyes glanced his way. "Why did you ask me to meet you here, Jack?"

"It's been six months, Will."

Will's jaw jumped. "I know. I remember."

"I still have contacts in the CIA, Will, but I need one that cares about finding Sydney as much as I do."

Will was silent for several minutes. He finished his drink and motioned for another. "Jack, Sydney is probably--"

Jack grinded his teeth. He wouldn't say the words, and he wasn't about to let Will say them either. "She's not."

Two drinks later for both of them, Will asked, "So what do you want from me?"

"Just leads," he answered. "Any intel that crosses your desk."

"Jack--"

"Just on Sydney."

Will took a few more sips, and Jack watched him struggle with himself. Loyalty to the CIA. Loyalty to Sydney. Faith in Jack. Doubt in Jack. They all battled their way across his face. He needed to learn to wear his poker face at all times, but Jack could see that his daughter's friend was well on his way to becoming a fantastic field agent.

"You're working for that bastard, Jack." The pain and the anger were muted, but Jack heard them and understood.

"I'm sorry about Francie," he said.

Anger kept the tears out of the blue eyes. "I am, too, Jack, and I'll get my revenge."

"I know. I don't plan on stopping you. I'm not working for Sloane. I'm working to find my daughter, and I'll use the devil himself if I have to in order to find her. Now, will you help me?"

Will took a sip and nodded. He motioned for the bill, and Jack told him, "On the receipt is a number where you can always reach me."

Will looked at the check, tossed some money down on the bar, and stuck the receipt in his wallet. Jack didn't bother to remind him to burn it after memorizing the number; he knew he would. Just as he knew the Will he'd first met would've joked about taking this meeting off on his taxes. But that was before the woman he loved had been murdered. Before his guts had been allowed to spill down the drain of a bathtub by a woman wearing her face.