Thanks to April, my 'beta' reader. Her suggestions are warmly considered

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Chapter 2

Her footsteps didn't make more of noise than she expected. She walked though the hallway filled with light from above in fluorescent rows of glass. It was blinding, the room was pure white and gave an illusion that it never ended, the hall would just go on and on. The only source of color was her skin. She was dressed in a full white catsuit covering every part of her body except her eyes to camouflage herself into her surroundings.

She stopped at the point of the camera up on the ceiling waiting for it to pass and making her way down breathing into the white plastic oxygen mask. She started to run, as she knew she had 3.4 seconds to go in and get the disk and get out. She quickly ran to the disk making sure to hold on to her mask, not to breathe the chemicals that were now released in the air eating away at her skin.

She could feel she skin burning like acid as she walked out in the hallway and taking off the suit that was thinner against her body. She felt her arm was bleeding though her pores, it looked like a large rash that she scratched until raw.

She cursed under her breath as she adjusted the little shorts and tank top putting the disk in her bra. She walked from the room, ignoring the many stares of her in shape body and her bleeding skin. She walked outside and went into the garden and handed to the man trimming the edges. He quickly handed it back in a few seconds and she continued down the garden's path to the van.

But she cursed under her breath again, this time in Russian words that were subconsciously forced out without knowledge. She saw the three rent-a-cops running down the path, she was too tired for this, she thought. She started to run as they chased not far behind her.

"Halt! Halten Sie rechts dort auf!" They raised their hands in the air, pointing to her, and she rolled her eyes and started off into a sprint. She turned on her earpiece and spoke under her breath, running on the small rocks as the path.

"Dixon I need extraction." She bolted her hands in a pump making sure all of her oxygen was evenly impelled.

"Alright Syd, take a left by the gate and go straight until you see 'West Village Pest Control'" He said, she turned the ear piece off and started down the left of the gate. She made her legs pump faster as she heard gun shot. Her skin burned every time she moved the skin feeling worse than peeling sunburn.

During the time of her employment she became a SD-6's best and brightest agent. Even Sloane had his favor over Sydney than any other agent in the field. Sloane trusted Sydney with the imperative operations and Sydney took the advantage and kept doing her work, conspiring with Sark though. A quantity of missions 'failed' some went devoid of completion, all that mattered were she was in as the mole getting to places others dreamed of.

She saw the van and sighed in relief but than she was picked up by the waist and pulled into the back of another van. She was surprised and scared, but she remained calm as she saw the four men in ski mask unarmed.

"Who are you?" Sydney hissed

Suddenly he took off his mask and saw what she feared that existed, she didn't know what to say as she saw the narrow eyes, jagged chin, broad shoulders, and his steel colored hair. She sat back in amazement and opened her mouth letting her up lip to be it on her lower teeth; she let her skin sink in letting blood escaped from the chapped skin.

"Daddy?" Her voice trembling.

"Sydney, listen to me carefully, I need the disk."

All these years as he went off the weirdest places just for Jennings Aerospace Incorporated to retail airplane parts he was in supplementary countries. Who knew whom he worked for? But he knew she was SD-6, if he knew she was K- Directorate she would be six feet under since all agencies abhorrent the pesky agency. Instead she was alive with a man she knew nothing about, in a domicile in Paris.

"You what?" Sydney sneered

"SD-6 isn't the part of the CIA you believe, it the enemy you believe you you're fighting." He told her, she took it as a shook mendaciously

"Who do you work for?" She hissed from her bleeding lips.

"The real CIA." He said

"You were never an airplane parts salesman, weren't you?" She knew the answer and didn't even look up for an indication of any retort.

"No,"

"Did Mom know?" She looked up, a question she had to know for Mom's sake.

"I need the disk." He spoke; suddenly he regretted the words that seemed so harsh for the unexpected truth. Her mouth opened and shook her head not understanding how he could be so insensitive and callous.

"Answer my question!" She scolded.

"She knew." His harden expression gave away and she thought about Mom and how she could lived in that world. She knew she couldn't. All those days her mother tucked her in when she asked for Daddy, because she knew Daddy could scare the monsters under her bed away. But her mother tucked her in with a smile and told her all when she met her father. Which wasn't a big story for a four-year-old, though just because her mother told her these stories of real romance with her thick accent coming though. Those were the nights when she saw her Russian features.

Sydney let her back touch the cold metal of the van to her back and let the words sink in. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeper letting her relax from her racing heart.

"You're hurt." He told her.

"It's a minor burn." Sydney scoffed.

"Your whole left arm is burned!" He went for the first aid box while she began to look at him like he was a stranger, since this came from the air, Sydney still couldn't swallow it. He began to bandage her left arm but Sydney didn't take him as the hero he was when he picked her up and placed her on the counter, kissing and wrapping her wounds as her mother wiped away her salty tears.

But she looked at the man who use to be her daddy, the man who would scare away the monsters in her closet and gave her kisses of affection when she was sad. His look as he tended her wounds once again was perplexed and befuddled.

"What?" Sydney spat.

"Every time I touch your skin it bleeds." He said

"Don't burn's bleed?" Sydney said.

"Not the kind you endured, it an acid burn." He concluded.

"So I bandage it up and put some ointment on it." Sydney let it pass, but suddenly dizziness passed in front of her eyes with black spots. She didn't let her appearance reveal it, but simply closed her eyes as he was applying dressing to her burn. He was talking, she knew her surroundings was words but she didn't hear it. Her forehead covered in glistening sweat as her breathing increased from her dark red lips that use to have the pigment of pink. Her chest began to cramp as it started to get hard for her to even swallow.

"Sydney hold still." Her father swore under his breath, as he knew her movements weren't intentional. He came up to her face as she collapsed into a seizure moving her body as her uncontrolled force made it impossible to settle her unto the floor of the van.

"Sydney! Can you hear me! Sydney!" The two other men that were stage there for technical reasons help her get settled.

Before Jack knew it he was being awaken from his sleep in an uncomfortable chair still in one of his mission uniforms waiting and hoping for his daughter's notice of well being. He had since washed his hands from Sydney's bloodstained on his skin, in every crevasse of his prints and nails. That almost made Jack Bristow faint washing away blood he helped to create on his own hands.

He had told Sloane that he received Intel after Sydney left of the chemicals that were released into the air if the alarm was triggered. Sloane had bought it when he told him that he went to notify Sydney but he had been too late. He didn't feel so guilty about lying or telling Sydney the truth, he knew she could keep his secret. But when the doctors came in with her things, her clothing, her underpinnings and the disk. He took the disk to the CIA official to get it copied, but when another man came asking for the disk he learned that man who asked for it earlier was K- Directorate. He still had the disk; it just was now there was three agencies in the Intel.

"Dr. Stewart wanted in the ER. Dr. Stewart wanted in the ER." The announcement came busting in his ear like a horn as he looked up at the doctors coming from the intensive care unit, their scrubs drenched in crimson liquid. He hoped and prayed her doctors didn't come out like that. He couldn't loose another person he loved more than life.

"Mr. Bristow?" He looked up at the white scrubbed nurse, and he just couldn't bring himself to look in her eyes.

"That…that me," he choked out.

"Sydney going to pull though," He could feel his mussels relax and a smiled on his face as he nodded understanding. "But she not out of the woods yet. She going to be find she going to be in the hospital for a while, her blood pressure has to get above normal and has to be given oxygen since her vega nerve has slowed down her heart beat quite a bit. With the burn, she will be given antibiotics until it heals, but it will in a couple of weeks." She smiled at the man who seemed tranquil at the words she given him.

"May I…see her." His throat was still not fully equipped for words.

"I suggest you keep it small and let her sleep." She nodded, he sat up with his legs tickling of pins and needles as he put on foot in front of the other and opened the door. There she laid, her short hair, which fell to her ear in small pin curls. She had let her hair grow every fall to her waist, so long and wavy like her mother's but in the springtime she cut it to her ear, giving all of her hair to locks of love. And when it was short it curled, when it was medium length it was straight, and when it was long it was wavy. And every two years this went on, but she never stopped doing it.

When he saw her in that white sterile room he saw the bandage on her left arm and the translucent tubes right under her nose giving her air that she couldn't breathe. He sat down in the chair by her bed, pulling it closer as her brushed her small locks away from her face. She was asleep, the only way to know was from her chest slowly rising and falling like an angel upon a cloud.

"It was a rainy day, we were afraid the flowers in the back would get over watered that day and die on us. She believed all that hard work in the fall just washed away like our sidewalk was. We knew the flowers were gone, that they died that day, and they haven't even bloomed then. She cried about that, but as soon as I got the fudge brownies out of the oven she quickly smiled and wiped away the tears. But before she could get the first brownie that wasn't going to burn her hands, she went into labor. We were both scared since you weren't due for…what? For another four weeks? Maybe three? Let me see…you were due May 2 so yes that was three weeks." He smiled back up as he counted and summed it up since he rarely thought about the real due date.

"April 11 was not a nice day to have a baby. Your mother raved that in the car, almost drove me off the road. She told me when she was twelve, a rainy day like that one in April, she was visiting Moscow with her mother when they got stuck in a revolt, and she fell down as the mob went down the street. That day she received two broken ribs, her shoulder dislocated and severe cuts and bruises. She told me that day; she didn't want to have you on the day that scared her most." That was the only day he could remember Laura Bristow not lying that day.

"So as we got to the hospital they tried to delay her labor as much as possible, but you just wanted to come out. When the doctors asked her to push she refused to; it was five minutes to midnight and your mother bit nail and stone to wait until she knew it wasn't April 11. You should have seen her, crying and yelling since she refused pain relievers, that was your mother, but even as the doctors yelled at her to push, she waited those few minutes until it was April 12 to have you born. And there you were fifteen minutes later, a small crying bundle." He looked down at her with his eyes glazed over with tears.

"You were the first baby I ever held you know that? Your mother said she held babies but nothing so perfect as you. When the nurses told us about how beautiful you were they said they mostly lied to every parent, but you…you were the most beautiful baby there. Small and perfect, you weighed only five pounds even. You were special, you are special. And when we came home it was sunny, and the flowers on everyone's lawn was dead and over watered so we figured our was too. But as your mother held you right in her arms as she walked into the backyard the flowers bloomed and colors were more vibrant that they had been during those three years she planted."

He looked down at his angel, his tears coming down from unwanted blinks. She didn't stir at his memory, she was still in slumber and he wanted that. He didn't want her to question his memory, since it was the only one he had that wasn't a lie. He didn't want to answer her question about her mother and her death. He wondered if Irina had lived would she go own as Laura or leave them as soon as she was called back. It was confusing to figure out the enigma that was Laura Bristow.

He saw the nurse outside telling him visiting hours was over by tapping on his watch, she kissed the girl deep in slumber and walked outside.

"I like to order her transfer to St. Mercy hospital in Los Angeles, United States." He said to the nurse.

"Don't worry, it was taken care of." She smiled at him

"By who?" Jack questioned.

"We received a phone call two hours ago, it been taken care of." She went back to her folder and smiled as he nodded and walking away, waiting for the helicopter that would bring both Sydney and Jack back to the States.

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