"It's never fun waking up with a stiff neck and a pissed off babysitter," Kaylee thought the next morning as she realized that Sark wasn't in the hotel room anymore. She knew it was going to take all of her skill to get Sark back on speaking terms with her even though she still didn't comprehend why he was so angry.

Kaylee decided to cope with the situation the way she usually did. She turned over and tried to go back to sleep. Not surprisingly, this method worked just as well as it normally did. Not at all. She continued to stare at the blank wall she was facing and felt herself doing the next best thing to sleeping, zoning out.

She was startled to feel an arm slowly wrap itself around her waist. "Maybe Sark isn't mad at me after all," she thought. Turning she realized that the state of affairs with Sark was the least of her problems. The room was full of people in military gear, and more importantly, she was being restrained by one of those men. Not to mention the fact that every single person had a gun pointed right at her.

"Hello," she said.

"Miss Derevko, will you please come with us?"

"Who are you?" Kaylee asked as the man holding her released her so she could stand up. Taking a quick inventory of the situation, she decided to play up on the appearance of sleepiness. Yawning, she noticed that the commandoes in her room were beginning to relax their stances. "Obviously not professionals," she thought. "So this can't be the CIA or the KGB or any of the remaining Alliance cells."

Her mind was racing at a heated pace as she tried to formulate a way she could get out of this hotel room and find Sark without getting anyone killed. She quickly realized that no one had gone to inspect the bathroom and so chances were they weren't aware of the nicely placed window that would be so easy to escape through. Kaylee turned to make her move towards the bathroom when the hotel room door opened.

"Kaylee, I just wanted to apologi--" Sark said as he entered the room. Before he knew what was going on, all the guns were being pointed at him.

Kaylee didn't waste a moment. As soon as all the guns were off of her, she was off like a flash. Her plan had subtly changed, though, since Sark's reappearance. She knew that her mother would be happy if she escaped the situation, but Irina would also be equally made that Kaylee was not able to extract Sark along with herself. "I can't leave this hotel without him," she thought as she began to take out the guards.

She knocked out at least five of them before the others realized she was attacking. A call rang out somewhere behind her to open fire but she couldn't break her concentration to process what that meant. She was about to take out a sixth and seventh agent when she felt a tiny pin prick on the back of her neck. As soon as she registered the slight annoyance, she hit the ground unconscious.

"Damn," Sark thought. "This screws up Irina's plan a little." He had just received a call from his employer a half hour ago. She told him that she wanted him to leave New Orleans and get on the next flight to Miami. Something about there being a girl there Kaylee needed to talk with. He could only assume Irina wanted her to have another confrontation with Sydney. Things were definitely not working out as planned.

Sark moved towards her fallen body but only made it halfway before the guns were once more focused on him.

"I don't know who you are, but if you've done your research you know I can't leave her behind," Sark explained. "You've won this round. Let me take a look at her, and then you can usher us wherever you need us to go."

Sark walked over and took Kaylee's pulse, happy that he was right about the guns being loaded with tranquilizers and not real bullets. He wrapped his arms around Kaylee and picked her limp body up off the floor. "Where to?" he said with a smirk.

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

Kaylee woke up with a pounding headache and a nagging feeling that something had gone drastically wrong with her vacation. She looked around and began to take in her setting. The cell she was locked in was about the size of her closet back home. There was no furniture in it except for one bed that luckily had a fairly new mattress slung on it. "No windows," Kaylee remarked. "I guess they do know a thing or two about holding people prisoner." She noticed that the door was a very solid wood that would be a hard to break, but it would be possible. "Which makes me think that there's something reinforcing it on the other side." The door had no windows, which she actually counted as a pro. That means to get her in and out or to provide her with food the whole door had to be opened. "Easier to escape when the exit's in sight."

Kaylee stood up and began to stretch. She figured it would be nice if she was ready for them when whoever it was came. She wasn't disappointed because within minutes of her regaining consciousness, she heard footsteps coming closer to her cell door. Grounding herself solidly like her mother had taught her, she prepared to attack her visitor.

Unfortunately, it didn't really work out as she planned. She hadn't had time to properly look the place over, and she missed the fact that there appeared to be a definite line dividing the first two feet of the cell from the rest. The line was to give the prisoners a little warning of the security system.

The cell door was actually comprised of two separate doors. A steel one that opened out of the cell, and the wood one Kaylee had inspected that opened into the cell. Once the steel door was open, an electric field was activated to create a wall that sectioned the cell into two. Kaylee happened to be standing on that line when the steel door was opened. She found herself thrown back into the rear wall rather harshly as the wood door opened.

Through her blurred vision she could make out a figure being shoved into the cell, and then she heard the definite sound of two doors clicking into place and the electric field deactivating.

"God! Are you all right?" Sark asked. He put forth his hand to help her up. Kaylee shook the blurriness out of her hand and took the offered hand.

"I'm all right, I think. I must have missed that whole security system/warning sign thing."

Sark smiled and winced slightly as he tried to help her over to the bed.

"Are you okay?" Kaylee asked. "You're not looking so hot."

"Yeah, I had a meeting with our captor. Never seen the man before in my life. I don't think he's been in this business for very long."

"Tell me something I don't know," Kaylee muttered as she eased herself down to a laying position on the bed.

"Well, he didn't really enjoy the fact that I was only concerned about whether they had collected my favorite suit that was in the hotel," Sark continued. "He took out his displeasure on my face."

Kaylee looked him over for a second. "Did you ask him if he managed to take my little black dress, too?"

"No, I was saving that one for your interrogation," Sark replied. He lay down next to Kaylee on the bed although there probably wasn't enough room for both of them. He figured that they both deserved a little rest from what they had gone through in the past few hours no matter how hard it was to obtain.

"So, what now?" Kaylee asked. "You're the pro at this. Mom told me that you've been held hostage by all the big government agencies."

"And I've escaped every time," Sark stated proudly. "I think with this one we may want to wait it out a little longer before taking our leave of them. I want to gather a little more information on this new organization."

She nodded. Her body started shaking slightly partially from the coldness in the cell and partially from the shock of being electrocuted. Risking an argument, she chose to snuggle up to Sark's side for body heat. "Do you think it's safe for us to fall asleep?" she asked honestly.

"It's safe you to fall asleep," Sark admitted as he put his arm around her. "I'm going to stay conscious in case an opportunity arises for us to make an easy escape."

Kaylee fell asleep almost instantly which did not surprise Sark in the least. She had put up a major fight in the hotel room, and then just moments earlier had been shocked rather severely. Her body needed to start its natural healing process. He was surprised to realize that he cared about if she was going to pull through this whole traumatic ordeal and he was actually trying to think of ways to keep her safe from the side effects of being interrogated. And most of it wasn't because she was Irina's daughter.

"When did I start giving a fuck about the people I work with?" Sark wondered out loud. He had always cared for Irina because she had given his life direction. There had never been anyone else he had ever worried about in his life except himself and Irina. He had actually prided himself on being so cold and unfeeling. It was a true asset in his field of work.

Sark lost track of time for a little while as he tried to sort out what had changed in him to allow Kaylee to penetrate his normal, reserved self. He had narrowed it down to a few theories, most of which included Sydney Bristow. None he could actually get himself to admit to. He was so absorbed in thinking through this predicament that he didn't notice Kaylee regaining consciousness.

She stared up at his pensive face for a minute and finally spoke. "We need to talk about what happened in the hotel room."

"I know," Sark said without making any attempt to move or even look her in the eye.

"You kissed me, and you didn't know what you were doing. I kissed you, and I did know what I was doing. Does that bother you?"

"In a way, yes," Sark answered.

Kaylee decided to be blunt. "Is it because you're in love with Sydney?"

This comment made Sark stiffen up a little, but he still didn't look Kaylee in the eye. His eyes were purposefully fixed on a point on the wall. "What makes you think I'm in love with Agent Bristow?"

"I saw the file folder you compiled on her. It was more than any assignment would have required. I could tell you took joy in compiling information on her." Kaylee paused. "You didn't answer my question."

He took a deep breath and tried to relax his body again. The two of them sat in silence for a few moments. Sark was at a loss for words for once in his life as he struggled to think of a way he could explain to her his relationship with Sydney Bristow, and Kaylee knew the conversation couldn't continue until he had answered her question.

"I figure there's no clear cut, simple way to answer you without it coming out completely wrong. So I'm just going to stumble through it and hopefully you can have enough patience to try to understand what I'm saying. Yes, I could easily be in love with your sister. It's complicated."

"Isn't it always?" Kaylee didn't know if she couldn't actually muster the patience to hear what Sark was saying. She suspected he did love her sister, but it was a brutal reality to actually hear him admit it.

"You don't know the half of it. But I hope you will when I'm done explaining. Sydney Bristow is an extremely attractive, self-assured woman. She's confident and sexy. Irina always teased me that if she was only twenty years younger, she would be my partner for life, professionally and personally. That's what Sydney is. An Irina who is my age."

"She's your equal in every way," Kaylee supplied. She shrugged herself out of Sark's arms and curled up against the wall at the end of the bed. Sark, in turn, sat up and leaned on the opposite wall by the head of the bed.

"What do you mean?" He had never considered that Sydney was his equal before, but it fit.

"Well, think about it. You're both extremely confident almost to the point of being cocky. I know you both have the same love of witty banter while you're in a life-threatening situation. I recall a comment you wrote when you were profiling me. 'Extremely attractive and she knows it' or something like that. I think it's genetic because Sydney is the same way. So are you. You know you're handsome and you're willing to use that to get ahead. Another point is Sydney grew up without a stable family life, and I can only assume from what you've told me the same is true for you. You can relate on that level and many others. Most importantly, my mother has told me about all the times you and Sydney have had confrontations. You're evenly matched in fighting skills and spying techniques. How can you not fall in love with someone who is such a perfect fit?"

"All you said is true, but I don't think what I feel for Sydney is love. I admire her on a professional and private level. That might be why I spend so much time researching her. She's intriguing to me. In the same way that you intrigue me," Sark admitted. Kaylee raised an eyebrow but let him continue. "I think if Sydney and I were fighting on the same side, I could easily form a relationship with her. I don't know if I would want to, though. There are things about her that I can't understand and I don't think I ever will. She has the capacity to empathize with almost every person she comes into contact with. I just can't fathom being that open and vulnerable."

"I think it all depends on how you're raised," Kaylee replied. "My mother raised me to the harsh realities that life will probably never be exactly as I want it. Jack Bristow allowed Sydney to practically raise herself, and in the process Sydney gave herself an eternal optimism. That's something I can never have."

"So, you see what I'm trying to tell you? Sydney would be a wonderful woman to have, but she's not for me."

"I think I do understand your point. But that only leaves me more confused about why the hell you were so upset by the fact that we kissed..." Kaylee said. She couldn't help but mumble, though, "...even though you had no idea what you were doing."

Sark realized that he wasn't going to be able to talk his way out of this situation without admitting to Kaylee what was really going on inside of him. He was about to start speaking again when Kaylee lunged toward him. She held her hand up to his mouth and motioned to the door. There was someone coming.

"I think it's time for us to break out of here," Kaylee said. She gave him a quick kiss and stood up. "We'll finish this conversation later."

He was a little put off by her casual kiss but was enormously glad to see the spark in her eyes he had seen when he picked her up from her mission in Brighton just a few days ago. A Derevko in that state was not someone you wanted to mess with.