BEST ENEMIES ~ SERENITY SEA

Email: Serenity_sea@yahoo.com

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Anything S3 is fair game, some spoilers for A Missing Link.

Distribution: ff.net, sd-1.com; if you want it, you can have it. Just let me know.

Ship: Sarkney. Well, overall, Sarkney.

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Honest, I don't. If I did, don't you think I'd have Irina in the season, already? 'Cause I would. And Syd would be all "Vaughn who?" Cause she'd love Sark and-I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't own them. Clearly.

Author's Note: While this is most definitely a new step for me--I know, another one, right?--I would just like to point out that I am very excited about this story. I don't know how long it will be or if I will even continue it, but even the way it's laid out--it's completely different from my usual style. I would VERY MUCH appreciate feedback. Because, of course, if it's awful, then I would give it up in a heartbeat.

* * *

The mission was a set up.

She knew as soon as Dixon started briefing them (cue Vaughn and Lauren gooey eyed looks here) that he had somehow pulled it off. And she was pissed. It was one thing to escape CIA custody under the guise of being robbed of eight billion dollars. It was quite another to all but demand her presence on a mission.

Of course, no one in this room knew she was the one he wanted. Of course not. They couldn't know. It wasn't as if he'd asked for her personally, outright. No. He'd sent in one of his friends to do the job for him.

She hid an evil smile behind her hand and pretended to be interested in what Marshall was trying to explain.

Bad Syd was back. And she was ready to do some heart-stomping.

* * *

When they got to Spain, the restaurant-slash-club was hopping. In fact, there were so many people there, she almost had trouble singling out the bodyguard. He was, in the least of all logical places, guarding the door to the bathroom.

Sydney carefully smoothed back some of her hair, simultaneously activating her comm. "I've spotted the guard. Going radio silent."

"Copy that, Syd. We'll cover you from down here." Vaughn. Like he still had the right to call her "Syd." She fought back an aggravated scream and instead turned off her comm. with pleasure.

The guard, who had seen her walk in, was not impressed with her. Perhaps he didn't think she could take him.

She looked at him carefully, estimated his body weight and factored in the various weapons she knew were somewhere on his person.

Yeah.

She could.

"I'm meeting someone here."

No response.

"He said he would be wearing a purple shirt."

Again, silence. Well, not that it was his fault. This was, after all, Spain. Lots of men wore purple shirts.

Sydney rolled her eyes and stomped her foot irritatedly. "Dammit, Nikolai, let me see him!"

Finally, some progress. She watched as he spoke with someone on the other end of his earpiece, observantly monitoring his eyes and facial expression while he did so. Damn. This guy was just as good as she remembered. He gave nothing away.

He drew his eyes back up to hers.

Her brow rose. "Well?"

"Sydney." That voice. Smooth, charming, and every bit as dangerous as it's possessor.

She turned. And there he was. Wearing that damn purple shirt. Propelled by a force that she couldn't explain, with a very devil-may-care smile hanging about her lips, she sauntered over to him. "Simon."

The dark man smiled. His green eyes--so unlike another pair of green eyes she knew--glinted in the darkness. "Want to make him jealous?" He whispered softly, lowering his head.

She let her lips linger against his. "Yeah," she whispered back. "He deserves it."

They were so close she could feel his lips curve up against hers in response and forced herself not to react too blatantly when he closed his eyes and kissed her.

What she didn't know was that he had maneuvered her into Vaughn's line of vision.

When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her with a satisfied smirk. A smirk that, while all too familiar, reminded her of the objective. "You jerk. You stuck your tongue in my mouth."

In the seductive tone they were using as cover, he replied, "I had to make it look convincing, didn't I?"

She glared. "Convincing for who?"

"You wound me." His eyes had darkened to fiercest jade. "Come now, Sydney. In about five minutes, I'll make the call. You can be sure that he already knows of what just transpired," he ducked in for another kiss before she could stop him. "Besides. You can't accuse me of a job inadequately completed. We damn near set the room afire."

Sydney dared to glance over at Weiss and Vaughn, both of whom were sitting at their center-point table, jaws scraping the floor. She grudgingly admitted he had a point.

He beamed. "Thought so." When he was certain the two goons at the table had taken their eyes away for a split-second--probably to call their superiors, it wasn't as if there was protocol for this--he reached up between their closely pressed bodies and tapped her on the nose playfully. "I've got a job to do."

She shook her head ruefully and smiled, one of the few rare smiles that had the pleasure of escaping as of late. Before he had completely withdrawn from hearing distance, she added, "Thank you, Si."

He, not looking back, threw a backhanded wave at her. Then he disappeared behind Nikolai. When she looked past the large man, he was already gone.

* * *

(Elsewhere.)

The man had been sitting inside his room for hours. He was tired, cranky, and sore. He also thought the climate was giving him some sort of sore throat, which only added to his discomfort.

He was not a man accustomed to discomfort.

When she had arrived, something in him had relaxed. She'd gotten his message. Good. Everything was going according to plan.

He'd only taken his eyes away for a second, to check the time, when he suddenly took notice of the screen and sat straight up.

"Bloody hell."

The two continued to go at it in front of a rather large--and appreciative, knowing that bunch quite well--crowd.

"I said, "Meet her," you sodding git! Not "make out with her!" He was five seconds away from calling his contact in that location and having them both killed when they finally separated. There wasn't much you could fake over a video feed, and apparently lust was one of those things.

Unless he was misreading the situation-and he didn't think he was-the man in the picture was the more willing participant.

They spoke quietly-too quietly for his tastes, for the cameras couldn't pick it up, nor could he make out what words their lips were forming--and then he left.

Precisely 22 seconds later, his cell phone rang.

* * *

"It's Simon." He added unnecessarily. Surely, the man on the other line knew his voice by now.

Silence.

"I gather you're not all too pleased with my performance down there. Personally, I thought it was one of my better--"

''--Where is she?" He cut him off.

"Best guess? Making some sort of excuses to her ex-handler. Have you seen that man? Biggest bunch of wrinkles under 35. Damn scary, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you. In fact, all I wanted was for you to meet up with her and make sure she was doing well." The cold fury in his voice was enough to bring a lesser man to his knees. "And you go and do something like that. I cannot believe you place such little value on your life."

He chuckled quietly. "My god, you've really fallen for her. Cheer up. She's ready to castrate me as it is, I don't need a death warrant on my head to cap it off." He reached into his pocket for the scrap of paper she slipped in his pocket, when they were in deepest part of the kiss. And here he'd thought she wanted to cop a feel. Well, that was enough for him. See if he'd do her another favor any time soon. His butt felt very offended at this point in time.

"Says she'll be waiting at the extraction point."

A cool pause. "Did she, now?" He cursed fluently. "And just what makes her think that after that little performance, I'm so willing to "extract" her?"

"Get over it, mate. She may be a handful and a half, but she's bloody gorgeous and just as mad about you as you are about her. I honestly don't know why you're wasting all this time talking to me when--"

*click*

And that answered that question.

* * *

When her phone rang in the alleyway, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Then she remembered that it couldn't be Vaughn, or her father, or even Dixon, with breaking information. She'd gone radio silent. Which meant only one thing.

"I see you've remembered how to use to a phone."

"It would appear so."

Sydney sighed and didn't care that the grimy brick wall she was about to lean her head against was probably crawling with parasites. "About time."

He waited just enough to give her some idea of how livid he was. "You have some explaining to do, Sydney."

The way he said her name, so coldly furious, and yet still managed to make it sound like an endearment, sent frissions down her spine. And yet, only one response came to mind. "Looks like you picked up something in my country after all, Sark."

And just like that, his anger at her dissolved. "I guess I did." She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what he was doing at that precise moment. Probably smirking at her. "Minx." There it was. In person or not, she knew that smirk. She could *hear* it.

In spite of the situation, she giggled. And when the black Mercedes roared down the alley five minutes later, she threw her legs over the door and got in.

* * *

Well?