It was almost six in the evening before he realized the significance of her clothing choice. She watched in the mirror as the anger and the denial washed across his face. He tossed aside the paper and stormed over to where she sat before the mirror getting ready for the evening.

"Get out of those clothes."

She turned to stare at him. He had lost so much weight he now looked sickly. The lines on his face were now etched on and deeply driven into his flesh. His emotions were not as raw; he tried to keep her at a distance, and sometimes he succeeded. But not often.

Just as she usually failed to keep him safely away from her. "No."

His hands snaked out and grabbed her shoulders. "You're not wearing mourning clothes, Irina."

"She was my daughter."

"Is."

"Was. Jack, it's been a year."

"She's not dead," he yelled, losing his control. The word he'd said--the word he'd not uttered since Sydney's disappearance--echoed in the room. He stumbled back, away from her. Angry at himself for saying those words, she knew, and angry at her for provoking him.

He turned and shuffled over to the window. She followed him, unable to stay away. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she pressed her forehead to his back. She kissed it through the white silk shirt, made for him by the tailor Sloane had come to the house. He'd taken the liberty of ordering Jack a complete wardrobe of expensive suits.

"Our daughter was brilliant, Jack. If she were alive, we'd know it. She would've gotten word to us or escaped on her own."

"Irina, I can't--" His voice broke, and he leaned his forehead against the glass. "I can't give up. Not yet."

"Jack, this search is killing you."

"Then it can kill me."

They stayed with her pressed against his back, both of them silent, until a maid told knocked on the door and informed them that guests were arriving.

***

Jack followed Sloane into his office. The last of the guests had finally left, and Irina had taken one look at her husband's face and left him alone with his friend. Former friend. Jack didn't even know what he thought of Arvin Sloane anymore. He was too tired to waste the energy thinking about it.

"I can't go to Korea," he said, unbuttoning the jacket of one of his many expensive suits. Sloane had ordered them for him after they retrieved Allison for Sark. Jack did the occasional bit of work for him, and Sloane said he wanted him to look professional. Lost in the middle of yet another useless trail of clues, Jack hadn't protested.

Tonight, one of their guests, a Cho Baek, had mentioned in passing Jack's trip to North Korea and how he looked forward to his help with his "little problem." Years of experience had kept him from reacting. "Your 'little problem' will not be a problem for long," he'd heard himself answer. He owed Arvin too much to publicly disagree with him. Irina's hand had gripped his thigh, and he sensed her displeasure.

She was probably up in their bedroom right now prepared to argue with him about accepting the job, a job he had no intentions of accepting. Irina tried to keep him out of Arvin's clutches, protesting every time Arvin asked for one small favor. He appreciated her effort, but he could take care of himself.

"You don't have to, but I would appreciate it," Arvin said, sitting down at his desk and motioning for Jack to sit down in front of him.

Jack did, feeling like he was back in the old SD-6 office for a moment. "I need to look for Sydney."

"All avenues are currently old," Arvin said, reaching over and grabbing a crystal vase. He silently offered Jack a drink, and Jack nodded his acceptance. "You need to do something to keep yourself occupied."

"I can interview--"

"You've interviewed everyone enough, Jack." Arvin's voice was firm as he walked around the desk and handed Jack a snifter.

"If any new clues--"

"I'll contact you."

Jack shook his head and took another drink. "I guess you got what you wanted."

Arvin studied him for a moment. "Not really. And, if you want to know the truth, if you and Irina would like to go on a vacation, I would gladly disappoint Cho and send someone else in your place."

Jack thought of sitting day after day without anything to distract him. He almost shivered at the idea. "I don't need a vacation, Arvin."

His friend--his former friend--stared at him. He set down his glass and leaned back against the desk. "I disagree. Irina's worried, too."

"She worries too much," Jack said, wanting to change the subject.

"It's been a year, Jack."

His jaw tightened. "I know how long it has been, Arvin. I know the exact minute my daughter hung up on a 911 operator. I don't need you or Irina reminding me of the date."

He stood. Arvin took a step forward. "Remember when Sydney was four years old, and Irina and Emily left us in charge of looking after her? They went out for a day of shopping, and we thought it would be so easy."

Closing his eyes, Jack could picture his little girl smiling in front of him. The clothes her mother had put on her that morning were destroyed. Both of her knees were scraped and a large bruise was forming under her eye, but her smile said that she thought her day in the park with her father was one of the best days ever. He gasped and opened his eyes.

Arvin's concerned eyes bore into his. "I can't do this," Jack said, stumbling back towards the door.

"You need to talk about her, Jack."

"She's not dead, Arvin," he snapped, turning on his heels but holding onto the door knob.

"Maybe not, but you won't talk about her, and you don't let us talk about her. It's not healthy."

He squeezed the door handle so hard it hurt. After struggling to find the words, he simply shook his head and walked out the door. He marched up four steps before his weak legs gave out, and he was forced to lean against the wall. Memories of Sydney tried to play through his head, but he managed to force them all away. He didn't have time for remembering; he had a job to do.

Standing up straight, he grabbed the railing and began to jog up the curved staircase. He needed to tell us wife that he was going to North Korea, and he needed to be ready for the fight they were about to have.

Somewhere on the twenty-fifth step or so, he asked himself when he started thinking of Irina as his wife again. He didn't have the energy to give it much thought though, so he pushed it away and continued up to their room.

***

"Will, thank you." Jack heard his voice trembling, and he saw the surprise and concern on the agent's face, but he didn't care. After fourteen months, countless hours, endless seconds, he finally had the lead he needed to get his daughter.

"You may want to get Sloane's agents inside the Triad to confirm it, first, but this looks legit to the CIA."

"What makes you think Sloane has agents inside the Triad?"

Will was silent, giving him a look that said the naïve young man he used to be was long gone. "The CIA doesn't plan to follow up on this lead, Jack."

The paper in Jack's hand crumbled. "Why not?"

The blonde man hesitated a moment before admitting, "The world's changed. They don't trust her anymore than they trust you. They think you may have engineered her disappearance."

Jack's jaw ached. "Kendall knows better."

"For what it's worth, Jack," Will said, leaning forward on the metal railing, which was already slightly damp from the dew off the bay. "Kendall said that was bullshit."

Straightening out the paper in his hand, Jack admitted, "We never got along, but he was always a straight shooter."

"He liked you." Will ran a hand over blood-shot eyes. "He knows I'm helping you--lord knows I made enough mistakes those first few times--and he turns a blind eye. He understands what you want to do, even if he hates your methods."

"He'd order my death in a heartbeat."

Will nodded. "I don't think anyone doubts that." Taking in a deep breath, he stretched and started walking towards his car. "Bring her home, Jack."

A hint of a smile played on his face as he fantasized doing that very deed. He could almost smell Syd's shampoo, could almost feel her in his arms, crying on his shoulder. Could almost hear her calling him "Dad" as they rushed away from her guards.

"I plan to."

Opening his door, Will tossed a smile in his direction. Jack allowed himself a moment to breathe in the cool night air. All of his work, all of his faith, was finally going to pay off. He was finally going to bring his daughter home.

Opening his eyes, he reached for his cell phone. It was time to get to work.

***

Jack pressed himself flat against the wall. He looked over at Irina, her face covered in black paint and her hair hidden beneath a toboggan. Her eyes sparkled. This time the evidence was all there. The Triad had their daughter, and they were there to get her out safely.

Revenge, as Arvin had said earlier, would be taken care of later.

Taking a deep breath, Jack nodded to the front man. The attack began, and all hell broke loose.

It took Jack only seconds to realize that the Triad had been waiting for them. Bullets wheezed through the air. Glass shattered around them. Metal thumped as it was ripped to shreds. Men and women screamed from both sides as they fell, and the linoleum floor grew slick with blood.

Jack fell on his shoulder, and pain ripped its way through his body. He ignored it, shouting orders to his team, and struggling to find a brief glimpse of Irina in the chaos.

Suddenly silence filled the room. The sound of footsteps crunching glass drew near him. Without a shadow of a doubt, Jack realized that this was all a set-up. A set-up to get him. All those opportunities the CIA had had to get photos of a captured "Sydney" from a distance had been too perfect, and he should've realized that fact. The sudden influx of information from an agent inside the Triad should've also alerted him.

His quick mind arrived at answers to questions he didn't have the time to ask. He knew who was behind those slowly approaching footsteps. They had been playing a game of this and that for over a decade. Jack saw it as business; Hernandez Vega saw it as personal. Closing his eyes, he laid his head down, knowing that they couldn't see him behind the large lab table in front of him. When he heard the wheezing breath of Vega, he opened his eyes and aimed his pistol. "Should've planed better," he said as his bullet wormed its way through Vega's skull.

His next bullet found the heart of the woman standing next to Vega, the woman who looked similar enough to his daughter from a distance, but who was so obviously not her when seen close-up. She made a small gasping sound and then fell on him. Her blood joined the blood of others his shirt had soaked up from the floor. Pushing her away, he stood.

Following his lead, his team jumped up and quickly eradicated the few remaining Triad members. They might not have been prepared for such an onslaught, but Sloane and Irina had made sure their people were the best in the business. Jack admired their skill as he fought along beside them.

Silence reigned again, this time for good. Vega's plan for revenge had failed. Jack looked at the few remaining team members beside him and nodded his appreciation. They nodded their thanks back to him, and then began to search among the dead and the wounded for their colleagues.

The occasional pistol fire told them when they found a live Triad member. They were making sure that everyone understood that messing with Sloane and his organization, even if it was just to get revenge against one man of that organization, was a foolish endeavor.

Jack turned and nearly fell again on the slick linoleum. He was expecting to see Irina's face. Instead he saw a young kid looking down at her body. He yelled and raced forward. Picking her up, he couldn't tell what was her blood and what wasn't.

With shaking hands, he reached for her neck. A pulse. Weak, but still beating. Jack began yelling for medical help, even as he accepted the chances of her surviving were slim.

Vega's plan for revenging a ten-year-old wrong might just have been perfectly executed after all.