Shattered



Sydney was in tears when she reached her car. Her hands shook as she tried to open the door. When she was finally inside, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called Vaughn.

She checked her watch as the phone rang and decided that he probably hadn't left for work yet. She left out a sigh of relief when she heard his voice on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me," she said, hoping her voice didn't sound as shaky to Vaughn as it did to her.

"Syd, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice laced with concern.

Sydney cursed under her breath. "Just tell me how to get to your apartment."

"Syd—"

"Just do it."


Meanwhile, Sark was changing and preparing for work. He sighed and tried to think of a way to prove—once and for all—that he was not going to betray Sydney or the CIA. He grabbed his keys and headed out the door.

He took the elevator down and left the building, walking briskly to his car. He was relieved that Sydney was gone already and quickly got into his car.

He started the engine and began to drive.


Sydney followed Vaughn's directions carefully and arrived at his apartment a few minutes later. While she was still on the phone with him, he had asked her half a dozen times what was wrong. She assured him she would explain everything when she got there even though she planned to only feed him a few lines about her trust issues and her break-up with Sark.

She parked and got out, not completely sure how Vaughn would react. She doubted he would pity her about her break-up with Sark, so she wasn't quite sure what she was expecting from him. She thought back to the plane ride to Tuscany a few days before when she had talked with her father about breaking up with Vaughn.

Jack looked over at his daughter and saw that she was looking down at her hands resting in her lap. "Are you all right?"

Sydney looked up and gave her father a small, reassuring smile. "I'm fine. It's just—I can't help but wonder if I made the right decision, you know? Like if I should have given it a little more time, and maybe I would have been able to open up and love him."

"Well, love does take time," Jack told her, "but if you already realized that you don't love him, then you would have been a fool to stay in the relationship to see if things would change. You would already know that they wouldn't change, and you would not only be wasting your time, but you'd be wasting Vaughn's as well. Not to mention, letting him think there was something there when there wasn't."

She swallowed. What if she could learn to love him? She felt her jaw tense. She was in love with Sark and that was all there was to it. They would reconcile after Sloane was found and things would go back to the way they were.

But Sydney found herself still pondering whether or not she had given Vaughn a chance. She suddenly felt somewhat foolish. What if her feelings for Sark had just been physical attraction? What if she had fabricated the whole love thing because she was blinded by her lust and he had let her go along with it because of a massive manipulation?

Chills ran down her spine. She didn't want that to be true and she had told Sark twice that she thought she trusted him. She still believed she did, but there was still some doubt, which she needed to extinguish. Ever since they had gotten back from Tuscany, and even while they were in Tuscany, Sark hadn't done anything that showed he was going to betray her.

But, Sydney reminded herself, it could all be part of one huge plan. Besides, hadn't her mother convinced the CIA to free her? Granted, it seemed she was going after Sloane with the help of Sark and she had turned over the Rambaldi artifacts that had belonged to Sloane, but was it possible that she and Sark were just playing puppet masters with Sydney and the CIA?

Sydney clenched her fists. She thought about how stupid she was for thinking she could fall in love with a trained manipulator and killer and actually think that he wouldn't try and employ the same tactics with her that he had used with everyone else.

She sighed a little and stared at the door in front of her. Something told her that it could symbolize a new beginning. She decided she could learn to love Vaughn. She knew she cared about him and she was somewhat confident that those feelings could turn into love.

She wasn't going to allow herself to be consumed by Sark. She didn't want to believe that he could betray her but it was very possible that he could and Sydney didn't want to stand the risk of getting hurt. If she placed her heart in the relationship too much and something happened, she wasn't sure she would be able to recover or even love again.

Vaughn was trustworthy, though. He was a loyal CIA employee who wanted to honor his father and would risk his life for Sydney at the drop of a hat.

She'd learn to move past the purely physical relationship they had had for the two months they had been dating.

She'd learn to forget about Sark.

She'd learn to move on with her life with someone who would never pull the rug out from under her and leave her shattered.

She'd learn to love him.


Sark arrived at the CIA, surprised to see that Sydney wasn't there. He decided it would give him more time to come up with a plan though, so he got out of his car and walked quickly inside.

He scanned the rotunda, looking for Marshall. Before he could put his plan into action, he needed to know how Sydney had found him and Irina in Tuscany.

He found Marshall at his desk with some headphones on, humming a techno tune. Sark felt an old smile creep onto his lips at Marshall's kookiness, then tapped him on the shoulder. Marshall nearly jumped out of his skin, but thrust off his headphones and turned around all the same.

"Hey, uh, Mr. Sark, good morning, and uh, it's nice to have you working here," Marshall said nervously, beginning to sweat a bit.

"Well, thank you," Sark said politely, then turned all-business. "I was wondering if you could tell me how Sydney was able to locate her mother and I in Tuscany."

Marshall's eyes widened a little and Sark could tell that he was thinking that Sark might be wanting the technology for his own purposes.

"I assure you, this is just out of my own curiosity," Sark said with a bit of a disappointed frown for Marshall's sake, so that Marshall might feel bad for immediately jumping to conclusions.

Marshall suddenly brightened. "Well, it was this nifty glue-stick-like tracking device that was spread onto one of the pages of the Rambaldi manuscript. Then it started to transmit, and that's how they found you and Ms. Derevko."

Sark smiled, also for Marshall's benefit. "Thank you." He put out his hand for Marshall to shake as a parting gesture, then left to walk through the rotunda to find Irina.


Sydney was still staring at the door to Vaughn's apartment. Vaughn was probably wondering if she had gotten lost and was probably worried and concerned. She sighed and thought about her plan again. She wasn't sure if it was a good idea, and she was pretty sure that she would feel guilty for doing it, especially since she believed she was still in love with Sark. But she was so afraid that Sark would shatter her that she didn't want to take a chance with the relationship anymore.

Getting back together with Vaughn wasn't such a smart idea either, but she needed someone right now. Even if the thing with Vaughn didn't completely go anywhere, she at least needed some sort of comfort in knowing that she was with someone who loved and cared about her.

Sark loved and cared about her too, but Sydney was still unsure whether it was real or an act, a precursor to some hurtful plot. She decided she didn't care. She would try to rekindle something with Vaughn even if it was only temporary. If Sark turned out to be good, then she could either elect to stay with Vaughn or go back to Sark.

She sighed and stared at the door.


"Irina," Sark whispered, tapping the woman on the shoulder then motioning for her to come with him.

Irina raised an eyebrow at him but followed him nonetheless. Sark led the way to the same quiet room that Vaughn had threatened him in and closed the door behind them. Irina stared at Sark for a few moments, inviting him to explain.

"We need to find Sloane and dispose of him ourselves," Sark explained.

There was confusion in Irina's eyes, which Sark noted were the exact same color as Sydney's eyes. "Sark, we're helping the CIA to find Sloane. It's a team effort."

"I know that," Sark said impatiently, "but Sydney doesn't trust me." Irina's eyes widened somewhat. "She's afraid that I might be taking advantage of her and saying that I love her just so I can get close enough to her to pull the rug out from under her feet. I need to prove that I'm not going to do that by killing Sloane myself, but I need your help."

Irina laughed wryly. "You think that you're going to prove your love for Sydney and your loyalty to the CIA by leaving on a clandestine mission and taking me with you?"

Sark sighed and frowned. "I know it's not exactly the best of ideas, but if I don't do something, she told me she's going to have us both locked away until the CIA finds Sloane. She knows that the CIA will never find Sloane without our help."

Irina nodded slightly and crossed her arms over her chest. "What's your plan of attack?"

"I'm thinking we contact Sloane and tell him that we have all of the Rambaldi items that he once was in possession of, and tell him that we weren't completely trusting of him with the genetic database retrieval mission and that he apparently wasn't too thrilled with us either. We'll convince him that we want our old partnership back, that we only took the Rambaldi artifacts because we were afraid that he would have destroyed the partnership and betrayed us," Sark explained, looking hopefully into Irina's eyes to see if she would—at the very least—consider the idea.

Irina let out a sigh. "It sounds like it may work, although I'm not exactly crazy about the idea of pulling another stunt on my daughter and then have to explain, once again, that it was all meticulously thought-out and prepared to trap Sloane."

"I'm not either," Sark conceded. "But I know how we might be able to prevent Sydney from getting too upset."

Irina eyed him curiously.

Sark began to explain, "Marshall told me how the CIA found us in Tuscany. There was a tracking device on the Rambaldi manuscript. I say we take that with us, and the CIA will see that that is the only Rambaldi artifact we took, and Marshall will no doubt jump in and say that he told me about the tracking device. Hopefully, Sydney and the rest of the CIA will be able to put the clues together and discover that we're fine with being tracked. If that doesn't work, then it's likely that—"

"—Sydney will come and find us on her own—without the CIA's knowledge, of course—thinking we've gone against the CIA and will want to exact her own revenge on us," Irina said, finishing Sark's thought. "When she does, we'll explain everything to her. Hopefully," Irina said, gently touching her wounded shoulder, "no one will get shot this time." She gave Sark an odd, somewhat desolate smile.

Sark nodded. "Let's get to it, then."

Irina nodded and they silently slipped out of the room.


Sydney finally worked up the courage to knock and rapped lightly on the door. Vaughn opened it a few moments later and studied her face, trying to detect what was wrong. Sydney swallowed hard.

"I broke up with Sark and that's all you need to know."

Vaughn's mouth opened in something of a state of surprise before Sydney roughly pushed him backwards into the room, kicking the door shut with her foot.