If Eric Weiss never heard the name Milo Rambaldi again he was reasonable sure he would die a contented man.

But the way things were going he would be hearing the name daily basis for the foreseeable future. Sitting in his office, Weiss watched with twisted amusement as caffeine charged agents clenched scrunched papers as if they contained lottery numbers. He saw the importance of Rambaldi, and who wouldn't? The guy predicted cellphones in the fourteenth century. You'd have to give credence to that no matter how skeptical you were about that kind of thing.

Just once he would like to go home at the end of the day and say, "I did something relatively normal today."

Just once he'd like to go home before 10pm.

So not likely to happen.

Those depressing thoughts caused him to string his yo-yo with more ferocity then the intricate trick warrant.

"Where's Vaughn?"

The apparition of Stephan Haladki at his door only served to darken his already bleak mood. With a mocking smirk the pathetic waste of oxygen entered the office, glancing around lazily as he did so.

"If I'm not mistaken Vaughn's is under strict orders not to see Bristow, that is where he is isn't it?" Haladki favored him with a condescending smile.

The prick was insufferable when he was right.

"What do you want?" Eric asked lacing his voice with as much hostility as he could manage.

"Well this intel is supposed to be for Vaughn and you only but it's evident that he's not here." The snitch eyes gleamed at Eric, and he had no doubt that the report of his absence would be reaching Devlin's ears within the hour.

"Show me the intel," Weiss growled, all the while imagining the various ways to kill the man in front of him.

"They want you in the labs." Stephen stepped back allowing his fellow agent to pass.

In spite of his earlier musings Eric couldn't help feeling a surge of excitement as he entered the carefully sterilized environment. This was where it happened, all the painstaking uncovering of primarily Rambaldi's work. It was hard not to be effected by the buzz of excitement charging the air.

"What's going on?" he asked as he approached a table surrounded by softly talking technicians.

One of them turned to him grinning broadly. It was a man Eric recognized, Peter Smith, a nice enough guy when you could get him away from the office. "Look at this Eric," he said earnestly. His coworkers parted to let him through.

Eric knew a little bit about art because his mother was an avid collector. He could appreciate the skill with which the painting in front of him was painted. It was a side on view of a woman with fawn colored hair gazing at the moon through an open widow. Out of habit he looked for a signature, there was none.

"Rambaldi?" he ventured, noting that even for the prophet this was extremely contrary to social decorum. In the 14 century it would be considered scandalous.

"Yes, a collector just shipped it from London," Peter said, running an agitated hand over his receding hairline as he continued, "When the Vatican ordered the "vanishing" of his works. They were sold, scattered globally all record of their worth forgotten under the guise of insanity. His art was not particularly unique in comparison with his inventions and during this time of artistic upheaval they were labeled 'common place'."

Eric was just about to ask the overly eager tech to hurry up when the door opened. As Michael Vaughn entered he quietly came to stand beside his friend, a mute apology in his eyes. Weiss couldn't help notice the way Halacki followed his progress almost knowingly.

"What is most exciting about this piece is the inscription." Peter indicated to 2 of his assistants and they painstakingly turned it over with tongs.

Both agents squinted to see the faintest outline of words

"It was originally an extremely complicated dialect of Latin we have managed to translate to basic Latin. It reads 'Meus concisus tripudium will laniatus vicis whether pro vox vel nefas vel ego relinquo'."

Eric heard Vaughn softly translate, his slight French accent becoming noticeable as he did so, "My brief joy will ripple time, whether for right or wrong, even I cannot foresee" Vaughn's previously tired eyes alighted as he made the obvious connection with the cryptic 'one who holds all'.

"Have we identified her yet?" Vaughn asked as he attempted to memorize every detail, certain that this would dominate his waking hours.

"It's like finding a needle in a hay stack. Because of his popularity Pope Alexander the 14thwas surrounded by nobles during his regain, we're searching the database now."

"Does SD-6 have this?" Weiss asked.

"Not as far as we know, Rambaldi paintings have never had much intel worth until now," one of the techs said.

Vaughn nodded in agreement "SD-6 has collected more artifacts then of all the Alliance cells for what Sydney has gathered. If they wanted to they could have what little remains of his art. It seemed worthless to them by all accounts."

Sydney Bristow was another name Eric could do without hearing for a while.

**

She was an idiot.

All the tests that stated her genius must have been faulty because this night was definite prove that she had little or no intellect at all. Sydney Bristow lamented her own stupidity as she leaned against the pier, gazing unseen towards the approaching sunrise.

It was almost clichéd.

If anything in their entire messed up situation could be considered clichéd it would be climatic meeting between the two angst-ridden souls. There were tears and shaky declarations of guilt and sorrow. That's how it was with them, they both knew what needed to be said and they said it, no matter how painful. It had gone as well if not better than Sydney had hoped. She had allowed the hope to surface that it would be okay and if their wounds weren't healed they were prevented from slowly destroying them.

And she had kissed him

Sydney buried her head in her hands.

Sometimes she couldn't workout what sucked more.

Being a impervious agent or being a emotionally charged specimen of humanity.