Friday

Sloane took a sip of coffee and leaned back in his chair. It had been a week since the board had put him in charge of Sydney's case. He had been working hard on it ever since. He paused and looked at her file that was open on his desk. He always had a bit of a soft spot for Sydney and was sorry this was happening to her but what had to be done had to be done. As expected his office door opened and a man stepped in. Sloane rose up to greet him.
"Mr. Haladki, I presume?"
"Yes Sir," Haladki answered shaking his hand.
"Please have seat," Sloane said settling back into his own chair, "I understand that last year there was some tension between you and Agent Sydney Bristow. Is that true?"
"It was about that whole prophecy thing. This was before we knew that the prophecy was about Bristow's mother-"
"Yes, I read the report," Sloane interrupted, "The reason I asked is because I wanted to know why you were suspicious of Agent Bristow? Was there any particular reason?"
"I felt that the situation required caution. I also felt and still feel that Agent Bristow could pose a risk to The Agency!" Haladki said imperatively.
"Oh? And why do you feel that way?" Sloane asked genuinely interested.
"Don't get me wrong she's a good agent, but she is also reckless. She disobeys orders sometimes, she takes unnecessary risks, and she allows her emotions to cloud her judgment. Not to mention the fact that she seems to impair the judgment of everyone around her," Haladki said his tone taking on whining tone.
Sloane was getting rather annoyed with this Haladki person but something about his last sentence intrigued him, "What exactly do you mean by that?"
Haladki looked at him for a moment as if trying to decide how to answer.

Sydney finished the last line of her report and emailed it to Kendall. She stood up to stretch her back. As she turned around Vaughn stepped up beside her.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi," she answered. Neither of them spoke again. 'Awkward silences now......wonderful!' she thought to herself.
"I just spoke to Kendall, he said that our intel indicates that the gyroscope we recovered was the only one Schatz and his colleagues had. There's been no sign that mass production of the gyroscopes began," he said.
"That's good," she agreed, and waited for a moment, "Well I'm going to go home."
"Okay, have a good weekend," he said.
Part of her knew that she should simply say a polite 'thank you' and then get out of there, but something made her change her mind. "You like hockey, right? The Kings?"
"Yeah, how'd you--" he started to ask.
"The pen you keep in your briefcase. It's a Kings pen," she said.
Yeah, I got it at STAPLES Center last year," he said.
"Yeah....I hear they're playing the Islanders tomorrow night," she said a turned and walked away before he could say another word.

Sloane dismissed Haladki ten minutes later after he had recounted his story. Even he would admit that Haladki was one of the most irritating men he had ever met, but he also had an obvious axe to grind and no qualms about back stabbing...........yes, this Haladki would be very useful indeed.
Sloane made sure that all of the files he needed were out as he prepared for Jack to come in at any second. Sloane had known Jack Bristow for years and knew that Jack was going to be a major problem to this case. He had been furious when he found out Sloane recruited Sydney, so this time he was going to have to absolutely convince Jack that that he was the good guy and that they had no choice in this matter.
As Jack walked in, him and Sloane acknowledged each other without speaking.
"It's good to see you Jack. I asked you to come here today because there's something that I regret I have to inform you," Sloane said.
Jack waited for him to continue.
"Your daughter, Sydney, is a double agent," Sloane said bluntly.
"I beg your pardon?" Jack asked.
"I'm very sorry, Jack. Internal affairs has been conducting investigations for months," Sloane said flipping through his file, "and they've found conclusive evidence that-"
Jack cut off Sloane be grabbing the file from his hands. Sloane stood silently as Jack read through the file.
"As you can see we have photos, documents,.......we thought they might have been fabricated but sources confirm they are genuine," Sloane said.
Jack looked up from the file with an expression on his face that Sloane had only seen twice, once after they found out his wife was KGB, and once last year when he found out she had been alive this whole time.
"Do we know who she's working for?" He asked slowly.
"No, that's what I plan to find out. As far as she knows her cover is still intact so I've been assigned to find out who she is working for and how much she has leaked," Sloane said.
"Do you think that it could be her mother?" Jack his voice like solid concrete.
"It's a possibility, but we can't automatically jump to that conclusion," Sloane said, "Jack.....you understand the kind of operation that will be involved in finding out who Sydney is working for. Right?"
Jack looked at him icily in response.
"I need to know that I have your support in this. And that you're not going to put your daughter before The Agency," Sloane said giving Jack a hard look.
Jack looked up at him before finally saying, "I understand that you'll only do needs to be done."
"Good," Sloane said walking around the desk to rest his hand on Jack's shoulder, "and I'll see to it that she is treated as fairly as possible.......you know I love her as if she were my own."
At those words Jack gave Sloane another glare and turned to leave the office.

Saturday

The next night as Sydney sat among the stands full of screaming jocks, she couldn't help but wonder to herself 'what the hell am I doing here?'. She had half a mind to just go home, crawl into a hot bath, and try to forget this momentary lapse in judgment. What was she thinking? Becoming emotionally involved with Vaughn was just not a good idea! Though, who was she kidding? Her and Vaughn were already had a connection that went beyond just colleagues and they both knew it. But still, was it a good idea to spend time together outside work? Or for that matter would he even get her ambiguous invitation? She still couldn't believe she had done that. At least he had the guts just to come out and ask her instead of trying to send veiled messages.
She sighed and stared out at the ice watching the little truck like zambonis running over the ice.
'Well, at least it's mildly entertaining watching those things' she thought to herself. Suddenly she turned as she felt a presence beside her. She turned around and Vaughn stood before her in jeans and a light windbreaker looking as if he had been expecting to find her the entire time.
'Score one for unspoken communication'
"Hi," she said.
"Hey," he answered back.
"So you came huh?" she commented.
"I wouldn't miss it," he said softly his eyes seeming like they were looking strait through her.
Finally she smiled and sat back down in the blue plastic chair. "You know it is rather juvenile of us to do this," she said.
"Well no one's perfect," he said sitting down next to her.
"So you going to take me through the finer points of this game?" she asked.
"What do you want to know?"
"So far.....where I can get myself one of those," she answered.
"A zamboni?" he laughed.
"What, they're cool!" she said laughing with him.
"No, no," she said then added after a thought, "Listen, I hope I didn't keep you from any other plans you had tonight."
"No, I didn't have any other plans," he said quickly.
She simply nodded and kept her gaze pointed towards the ice.
"Listen Syd, you should know that about-"
"Vaughn," she interrupted, "You don't have to explain anything to me. I mean it's your business."
"Yeah," he said, "but I want to tell you."
She swallowed and braced herself. She honesty didn't want to listen but couldn't very well tell him that.
"Alice and I did meet again last year and we've talked a couple times because of the trouble she was having with her father's illness, but we aren't dating.........we were over along time ago," he said, the implications behind his words more than obvious to both of them.
She took a breath as she processed his words and gave a light smile as they both turned their attentions back to the players coming onto the ice.

The next two hours were spent sipping over priced beer, cheering during good plays, and screaming after bad ones. All in all it was a surprisingly nice evening. It was one of the first times they could just be themselves around each other instead of being professional.
They laughed together as they walked through the parking lot.
"So Zamboni was your favorite part?" Vaughn asked.
"Well not my very favorite part!" she said, he just laughed in response, "Oh shut up, okay!"
They stopped once they reached her car.
"This was fun," she said.
"Yeah....." he agreed. They both stood silently not quite sure what to do next.

Meanwhile an unseen observer watched the scene with disgust.
"Come on you candyass make your move already!" he muttered.

"Well I guess I'll see you at work on Monday," he said cringing at how pathetic that sounded.
"Yeah, I'll see you," she said. Another pause followed. This was getting ridiculous.
They stood silently for a couple more seconds before making a snap decision and leaning over to meet with each other's lips. The kiss was soft and tender, and stood out because it was one of the first moments the entire night that was not tense.
Vaughn laughed to himself, 'So this is how you get past the awkwardness when trying to date a co-worker. Skip the actual dating and jump forward to the making out........I think I can live with that.'

As Sydney and Vaughn were still caught up in their own little word that revolved around warm embraces and knee weakening kisses their observer was busily snapping away shot after shot onto the roll of film in his camera.