"What the hell was that about?" Sark finally asked as he swerved through the lanes of traffic on their way back to London and Heathrow Airport.

Kaylee stared at Sark in surprise. She really would have guessed that if her mother had known Sydney was going to intercept her on this mission that Sark would have been the first one to be clued in. "Guess he's not as big a player in her organization as I originally thought," she mused. But then as an afterthought, she muttered, "Or she had a reason behind it."

"Behind what?" Sark asked.

"Oh. Did I say that out loud?" Kaylee said rather sheepishly. "I was just thinking about Irina and her organization. She always is ten steps ahead of every single other person involved. I was just wondering how ahead she was in terms of what went on tonight."

"Okay. You're speaking in code right now. A little explanation please." Sark gunned the engine as he took the first exit ramp he could find off the road they had been driving on for the past twenty minutes.

"Sydney was there," Kaylee said simply.

"It all makes sense," Sark said as he put two and two together and actually got four. Very few things were as easy to understand in his line of work. Thankfully, Irina usually was pretty cut and dry when it came to matters that involved Sydney or Jack Bristow.

"We had a fight," she continued to explain with a grin.

Sark chuckled to himself a little and sent her a trademark smirk. "Kicked her ass, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"I would know that grin anywhere. Wore it a few times myself. It screams I outsmarted Sydney Bristow, which isn't something just anyone can do." Sark paused a moment. "Come to think of it. It took me quite a lot of time before I figured out the way to outsmart. Humor me for a moment. I know you've been studying Sydney and what makes her tick for a while now per Irina's instructions. But, honestly, Sydney is a lot smarter in person than on paper. Are you sure you got the best of her?"

"What the hell are you trying to say, Sark?" Kaylee yelled, immediately on the defensive. "I am not a moron. I am capable of outsmarting someone be it Sydney Bristow or the whole fucking CIA. I'm a Derevko, and in my mind that means something."

Since the roads were pretty much deserted at four o'clock in the morning, Sark did a quick veer off the road and tail spun the car ninety degrees. He quickly turned off the car, grabbed the keys out of the ignition, and stepped outside. Kaylee, fired up by his comments, wasn't far behind.

"I know you think you're some hotshot driver, but what the hell was that?" Kaylee screamed.

"We needed to pull over," Sark stated simply.

Kaylee groaned. This man was infuriating the way he never gave up more information than he wanted. "He never fully clues me in to what he's thinking. He always has that smug fucking grin on his face. And why the hell is he just leaning on the hood of his Jag smirking at me?" she thought. She stayed silent figuring that he had to start explaining what was going on eventually.

"Let me see the Rambaldi disc you stole," Sark demanded.

Kaylee dug the disk out of the bottom of her bag and carefully unwrapped it. Smiling at herself at the thought of how she outsmarted Sydney at her own game, she handed the disc over to Sark. He took one look at it and flung the disc into the woods behind them.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Kaylee demanded as she watched her mission objective hit the ground with a crash.

"It wasn't real," Sark stated. "Irina would rather you come back with nothing than return with a glass circle that could be purchased at the nearest hardware store."

"What the hell are you talking about? I took that disc right out of Sydney's bag. It was the only one there so she obviously didn't make a switch. Irina's going to kill you when she finds out you just broke a Rambaldi artifact."

Sark, ever the cool head, finally lost his trademark calmness. "Listen," he snarled as he pushed Kaylee up against the side of the car. "You're not playing some little child's game of keep away. This is very important work that isn't the slightest bit safe. Nothing's innocent in this world. You can't trust anyone, not even yourself. Sydney Bristow would never let you leave that place with a Rambaldi artifact. Never. That's the first lesson you need to learn if you're going to keep confronting her. That woman will do whatever it takes for her precious CIA... even kill. You need to accept the fact that you can't outsmart her no matter how hard you try. She's the best there is at what she does." Sark eased up his grip on Kaylee a little although he still held her against the car. "You're good, Kaylee. You really are. If you listen and learn from Irina and I, in no time at all you will be better than Sydney ever was. But you need to learn where your weaknesses are. As I see it now, one of your weaknesses is your sister. You just don't know her well enough to defeat her."

"And I'm guessing that you do," Kaylee said.

"No, I don't. The only person in this world that I truly believe can get the better of Sydney is her mother." Sark let go of Kaylee completely and walked around to the driver's side of the car. "Get in. We need to get back to France so Irina can tell you what this whole mission was really about because I'm betting it had nothing to do with Rambaldi and everything to do with you and Sydney."

Kaylee sent a look of death in Sark's direction but reluctantly sat down in the car. It was going to be a long plane ride home if Sark was going to keep treating her like a rookie. She kept herself sane the rest of the car ride to the airport by thinking of how many ways she could kill Sark using just what was within her arm span.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Half an hour later, Sark was ushering Kaylee through the airport into one of the private terminals where Irina's personal jet was ready and waiting to take off. The two were trying very hard to pull off the charade of being a newly wed couple returning to France from their honeymoon in London. Normally an easy assignment, it was turning out particularly hard since Kaylee was so pissed off at Sark for the reprimanding she received.

Safely seated on the plane a few minutes later, she finally decided it was time to tell him what had been on her mind for the past forty-five minutes. Kaylee walked over to the leather coach Sark had positioned himself in. He had pulled out a laptop and a few manila folders, seemingly prepared to spread out and start working without speaking a word to his travel companion.

"Can I talk with you?" she started politely. She figured she might as well start out nice since the majority of the conversation would be rather heated.

"Yeah," Sark said with an eyebrow raised slightly in curiosity. In his experience, nothing good could come out of a woman who was trying to be overly nice to you.

"I just had a few things I wanted to get off my chest," Kaylee said as she continued the pretense of being nice. She moved a few of the files over and took a seat on the coach. "I just wanted you to know I'm not some little rookie on their first day on the job. I'm a Derevko. Like I said before, that means something. And not just to me, but to the whole little spy world we live in. You don't know me well enough to criticize me. Hell, you didn't even bother to ask me what really went on in the Royal Pavilion. What I'm trying to say is I grew up as my mother's daughter. She taught me how to think and how to react. If there's anyone on this planet that can guess what Irina Derevko is thinking, it's me. And I can tell you right now that you were right. The Rambaldi disc really had nothing to do with this mission. Irina wanted me to go in there and prove my greenness. She wanted Sydney to think that I wasn't that good at the whole spy thing. She wanted Sydney to see me as just a little sister who was trying her hardest to make her mother proud by being better than her sister is. And I think I succeeded." Kaylee paused to try to read what Sark was thinking, but like always his face showed no reaction. "Anyway, my mother trained me right. The real glass disc, which probably isn't the actual one taken from the Pavilion, is sitting in the left pocket of my coat over there. I'm sure Sydney has the official one, but like I said earlier the disc never mattered in the least."

Sark actually allowed himself a smile.

"What?" Kaylee asked, wondering what she had said that would actually have made him happy.

"You are a Derevko. That's for sure."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you."

Sark closed his laptop and gathered up his files. He pushed them all into the bag he had originally got them from and turned to give Kaylee the once over. After much thought, he leaned over and whispered to her, "I'd really like to know more about this Derevko."