A/N: Thanks a lot for Susan's help, hope your paper goes well. Well I just got back from NYC for the protest, it was amazing, people down there just have so much energy against the war, it was very moving. Thanks to my FREE TIBET CLUB members, even though I'm new and you don't know me you help for the city was amazing. I know it been so long and it is my fault but lets get on with the chapter.
***
Sydney stared out into space; she has been in here for two weeks and not yet visited by Haladki, saying she was innocent. First of all, she had done nothing wrong, nothing of the sort. She had been tricked and betrayed by the person she most trusted and cared for.
"Sydney," Her father voice came through the glass pane; she had lost herself to hear the bars clanging to rise. She slowly looked at him and stood up, walking to where he stood.
"Do I really need all this…security? I mean…I'm not a murderer." She told him.
"They want you as secluded as they can get you," His eyes blinked and he looked softly and tenderly at his child. "I brought you some reading material; I didn't know what you liked so I picked up as many books around your room as I could find." He slides the books though the box behind the grating and she smiled as she went through the books of her teenage years. Anne Frank, Romeo and Juliet, To Kill A Mockingbird, Short stories by Mark Twain, Anna Karinina, and then something too old to remember, James and the Giant Peach?
"What this? I don't remember this." She held up the ragged broken book, whose pages had been yellowed with age and had been ripped and torn.
"You don't remember that?" He asked shocked, he smiled softly as her eyebrows narrowed. "I read it to you every night when you were four, you loved that book. After that, you had a fascination with peaches, you ate them constantly." Her face was still baffled. "I really can't believe you don't remember."
"I remember eating a lot of peaches, but not the book." She turned the pages slowly taking in the scent of her father's after-shave. She saw the unusual scribbles of pictures every chapter and then in the back saw her Father's handwriting. To Sydney's Peach Fascination – Daddy, 1980. "I have no idea."
"I knew it was something below your level of comprehension, you mother clarified that a millions of times." He coughed, paused slightly and went on. "I knew it wasn't Tolstoy or Fitzgerald, but you needed imaginary characters full of adventures and…color. I felt you learned too much of the world by your Mother's…teachings, you needed to be a child." He explained. The memories started to come back as Jack came home, picking her up from carpet as she watched television. He had carried her to the chair, sat her on the lap, and began to read the book as her mother clean up a peach and handed it to Sydney. She would fall asleep on her father's lap, every night he came home. Sometimes they would go though a page, sometimes two chapters. What ever it was Sydney felt peaceful in her father's arms.
All Sydney wanted to do was to feel his arms around her, protectively, paternally.
Then Vaughn entered the though the bars, standing next to Jack behind the same glass pane.
"Well, what has happened lately?" Sydney asked, prying for some type of news. Vaughn thought for a moment, "Nothing much from yesterday…but we need your help. Sark has one of the Rambaldi's pieces that we gained in Vienna," Before she could finish Sydney answered his question.
"Sark has a house in Corsica, France. That's his hideaway when things get hectic, it under the deed of Francis Rathford. He adores the blue ocean of the Mediterranean; he spent a great deal of his teenage years away from Ireland and in France." She explained he sensed there had been something between them, and now she had confirmed it how she spoke so fondly but blindly. "But it greatly monitored, you have to careful. It's a death trap, only I know how to get in."
"How do you know this?" Jack asked.
"During spring break, I told you I would be spending the week with Francie and Will when I was really in Corsica." She said. They both looked at each other. "Any protocol states you cannot be seen with your handler, isn't that true?"
"Sark…he beyond protocol, I thought it was strange, too, why he easily broke protocol and still remained my handler though the agency." Sydney smiled with a sigh out of irony. "But we know why he could, and did. He was working along side 'the man', he had the standing above handler." Sydney said.
"We need the codes." Vaughn said.
"No codes." Sydney said.
"Voice activation?" Jack asked.
"Thumb prints." Sydney said.
"We need your finger prints." Sydney nodded.
"You not telling us something." Jack concluded and Sydney nodded again.
"It's not his home." Sydney said. Jack eyebrows narrowed as he questioned who house was it.
"It's our employer's."
"The Man's?"
"Yes, Sark told me it wasn't his home but the private house of our employer. He suggested we both stay there since we did a good job that year." Sydney explained.
"Have you ever…seen him?" Vaughn asked.
"No, no I haven't." Sydney said. Then she looked up to her father with doe eyes like begging for candy. "Let me come along." She pleaded.
Vaughn was baffled; he didn't know what to say or what Jack was going to say. They stood there waiting for an answer to form from their mouths. They didn't want to say no but they couldn't just say yes. Sydney stood there and saw their expressions, clueless.
"I mean, I have the access, I know when the guards change shift. I know the easiest way in and out, and I want…I need to see the sun again." She looked at them about to cry, but she held the tears in afraid to blink. "Please, this will prove my loyalty. Let me do that."
"I'll try." Jack said.
"Thank you." Sydney said, to both Vaughn and her Father.
As they exited Sydney sat back on her bed with the books, and began to read. Not the classics she conquered at an early age but the torn, yellowed, children's book that had been at the bottom of the pile.
***
Haladki walked in from office when he saw the request two minutes later and stormed into where Sydney was reading, she looked up and smiled at the weasel, sat up from the cot, the book still propped in her hands. Sydney began to reach the glass to come face and face with him.
"It called 'The Inferno' by Dante, have you ever read it? It takes a journey though hell, though points of sin though recreation or politics. It's a masterpiece really, an epic poem though hell's set of torture for an adulator or even a corrupt politician. You must have read it, Haladki." She smiled as she closed the book and his eyes twitched bizarrely. She nodded, as she knew he knew.
"You are going to get me out of this cell before I report you to security." She spoke to him again.
"You have no power over me, Miss. Bristow." But he was unknown to Sydney Bristow's power over others. She was taught well by many instructors how to crush little roaches like Haladki even if they were on the identical side. She thought inadequately of Haladki currently as she tilted her head to the side, evaluating on how extensive it would endure for him to comprehend her command. Since working for the enemy, being taught by the enemy, she acted like the enemy.
"Don't be so sure of about that Haladki, I remember you at the Institute in Moscow. I was there for a five-week training period so my standing wouldn't be compromised. But I remember you, and that was a K- Directorate building. You work for them." He searched in her eyes and gave out a stubble laugh.
"You don't understand Bristow, I have you. You can do nothing, you have no power over me." He turned to leave and said one finally time, "You will not have permission to leave this cell, not over my dead body."
"That can be arranged." Sydney snapped back, Haladki smirked.
"Your father is already airborne, there nothing you could do now." He walked out of the cell. She swore to herself as she sat back on the cot and took out another book. She knew she was compromised, she was worried about that but that wasn't as worrying as her father going alone to Corsica. She knew that there were going to be complications in the mission, she had the information, everything about the house she knew.
But they were ignoring her, and she didn't appreciate being ignored when supplying generous information for no reword.
She began to read softly, letting the words flow of her lips as her eyes dotted across the lines. Hours went by as she found it harder to read a child's book and her thoughts traveled to her Father. She knew something he needed to know.
The house was a death trap, when armed.
She placed her book down and stood up walking to the mirror. She knew something was wrong as the footsteps moved closer and the stress on his forehead was seen.
"Your Father hasn't responded for about an hour. Were sending a team down there, you're coming with us."
"Armed?" Sydney asked.
"Yes."
"Good." Sydney nodded as she was being let out of her cage.
***
April 22, 1999
Sydney took the bag from the seat, and as the car door opened, she saw a hand appear. She placed her hand in his and exited the car as the sunlight hit her face from the tinted windows of the car. As she stood, she saw him smiling. She looked around and saw the huge chateau that took her breath away.
"We're staying here." He nodded.
"This is unbelievable."
"I do enjoy spoiling you." He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her though the doors and up the stairs telling her about the guard switch and the information she needed to know. Dinner at six, breakfast in bed, lunch on the patio, and this weekend was the Richmond gala in which her employer had sent a dress to her for the special occasion. Black and green silk dress that was backless, she thought the selection was in good taste but sensitive in the area that it was chosen by a stranger.
She had spent the week around in the large library or at the pool. She had seen Sark in the office working not spending as much time away as Sydney thought he would. But at the gala, he was mingling and sharing political thought with other gentlemen of his standing, when Sydney talked to the women who weren't gaining any interest of her standing.
They had shared a waltz in which his hand never left her uncovered back; soon they found themselves in her room undoing their clothing, kissing, and then falling on the bed. It wasn't exactly love but it wasn't work either, it was hard to describe it. It just seemed that what they wanted at the time and they were both there. They didn't talk about it afterwards; it felt too awkward for her and it wasn't partial to their relationship. He had hoped for another chance together to tell her how he truly felt but she felt unattached when he had tried to talk.
It seemed their relationship would always be awkward for him and her.
***
"Hello?"
"Agent Sydney Bristow is AWOL."
"My girl never disappoints me. Tell me how?"
"Michael Vaughn had appointed Sydney in charge of the mission to excursion of her Father in Corsica."
"Serves them right, The CIA should have listened to her."
"Agent Bristow knows about the mole, she is lead to believe that the agency knows about her being held captive."
"Make sure that thinks that we don't."
"Anything else madam?"
"Keep a close eye on my daughter."
***
Sydney entered the basement with Vaughn, keeping their guns aimed and armed for any type of intruder. As soon as Sydney saw the guard she fired, he was down. They moved on and Vaughn began to open the door, she held him away from it. She took off her glove and placed her hand on the dark screen next to it, it scanned her prints and they moved on through the door.
Memories seeped through Sydney's brain of Sark profile, how he showed her the teenage side of him. He enjoyed music from all sorts of countries, Celtic and French, even Russian. She believed that was only true self of Sark.
"Sydney, which room's the safe?" Vaughn voice came out from her thoughts. Be on task, Sydney, don't wonder.
"Third one on the left." Sydney replied.
Sydney put her hand on the door, waiting a second as she raised her gun through the door and shot. Vaughn was surprised as the careless waste of a bullet, but as they opened the door she saw the guard down on the floor. As they opened the door they saw her father in the chair, tied to the arms and legs, his eyes opened widely as they entered the room. Sydney took off her mask and went to untie her Father as Vaughn looked around the empty room. There was no safe; he had been lied to.
But something wasn't right, for Sydney either. Not at all.
"Dear Sydney."
Sark was here.
A/N: Reviews would make me write faster, please press that button down their, the purple one. Go on, you can do it, come on, give you a cookie, there we go. Thank you.