Sydney walked casually through the streets of Mineral Point, Wisconsin. She was surprised that no one had run up to her screaming stranger. The town was so small she could only assume that she stuck out like the sore thumb that she was.

However, it was without doubt one of the most beautiful, happy towns she had had the pleasure of being in. The streets were filled with people visiting with one another and just enjoying the nice weather. Sydney even had witnessed an impromptu proposal in the middle of the town's park. If she hadn't come to town to try to pull her best friend out of the Witness Protection program, she would have almost enjoyed spending a little vacation time here.

Sydney looked down at the piece of paper that Dixon had scrawled an address on right before she left. "20 Bryn Mawr Lane, here I come," she whispered and began to give direction to her steps.

The house at 20 Bryn Mawr Lane fit the rest of the town perfectly. It looked like it had been built over one hundred years ago by one of the town's founding members. There was a small amount of smoke billowing out of the house's chimney. The front yard contained a small boy playing with who Sydney assumed was his father. The father was wearing the most ridiculous hat Sydney had seen with ear flaps and everything.

"Excuse me," she called even though she hated to interrupt such a picturesque moment. "I'm looking for my friend." She looked down at the paper Dixon had given her once more. "His name's Steve Davis."

"I'm Steve," the man said. "And I have no idea who you are." The man made a move to grab something out of his pocket.

Sydney hurried across the lawn before the man could draw what she only assumed was a gun. "Please don't do that," she called. "You might not know who I am, but I was under the impression that you were my best friend. He likes to take these last minute vacations to small towns like this under aliases. He's kooky like that, and you probably don't believe a word I'm saying..." she trailed off. Sydney sighed and pulled back the hood of her coat. She was a little rusty in her lying skills and didn't think for a minute this man would buy her quickly put together story.

The man gasped slightly and forgot about drawing the gun out of his pocket. He pulled the young boy into his arms and walked towards Sydney.

She was surprised to feel his hand reach out and touch her cheek. "Is that you, Syd?" he asked.

"Will," she said. Her eyes widened as realization dawned on her.

"The CIA said that you had died. What's going on?" Will dragged her over to a bench that was sitting on the front porch of his house. He didn't know if they were being surveyed by anyone.

"I'm not dead," Sydney said with a laugh. "They were wrong."

"Obviously. What are you doing here?"

"I've come to let you know I was still alive. And to officially offer you the option to come home. Dixon said that you might not want to come home. I have no idea why he would think that, but I promised him that I would give you the chance to turn me down." Sydney turned her attention to the small boy Will had in his arms. "Who is this little guy? Don't tell me that you're babysitting for a living? Because that's sad even for you."

Will let out a laugh before sobering up. "No, Syd. I'd like to introduce you to my son, Grayson."

"Your son?" Sydney could feel her eyes bug out. "You have a son?"

"Yeah. And wait until you get a look at my wife."

"You're married?" Sydney screamed. "I thought that day would never come. You never seemed the type to want to settle down."

"I'm still not if that makes sense, Syd. It's a long and complicated story, but that's nothing new to you," Will said with a smirk. Hearing the front door of the house open, he turned to look at his wife.

"Will, I've just finished lunch if you want to come in and eat," his wife called from the front porch. Hearing another voice talking with Will, she added, "Oh! I didn't realize you had company. Invite them in." The door swung shut behind her.

Sydney turned to Will. Two seconds ago, she couldn't believe she could possibly be more shocked. She was wrong. "Is that my sister, William Gregory Tippin?" she hissed forgetting that she wasn't supposed to use that name.

"Um, yeah. Aren't you going to welcome me to the family?" Will said nervously.

"We are going to get up and go into that house. And then the two of you are going to explain to me what the hell is going on."

"I should say the same for you," Will replied. "You still haven't explained what you're doing, coming back from the dead and all and surprising us. I have to say, Syd, that I always believed you could do anything you wanted. But honestly I thought coming back from the dead was even beyond your powers."

Sydney nodded with a small smile and motioned for him to lead the way inside. The trio made it almost completely in the door before Sydney burst ahead to find her sister. She couldn't help but be excited to realize that her sister was safe and sound living in hiding with her best friend. Though she was still confused by the whole situation she had stumbled into.

Kaylee was located in the kitchen taking a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. She turned around and almost dropped the tray on the floor. "Sydney???" she screamed and flung the tray onto the top of the oven haphazardly.

She was across the room before anyone could blink and was pulling Sydney into one of the largest hugs of her life. "What the hell are you doing here?" she continued to scream.

"Hey, sis. I'm not dead," Sydney managed to spit out when her sister let her up for air.

"No shit!" Kaylee yelled.

"Language," Will reminded putting his gloved hands over Grayson's ears.

"Sorry, sorry," Kaylee apologized. "It's been two years, but I'm still getting used to this whole mom thing. What are you doing here Sydney?"

"Well, I'm here on official CIA business. My return from the dead was supposed to be Will's ticket to leaving Witness Protection. Dixon said he thought Will wouldn't want to leave, and I have to admit I didn't understand it at the time. Honestly, I still don't understand it now. Are you two really married? And whose kid is that really?" Sydney got a strange look on her face. "Is he a plant?"

Kaylee led Sydney over to the coach in the room adjoining the kitchen. "No, Will and I are not really married. It's part of our new identities. We're Shelly and Steve Davis, the perfect young couple, who moved in across the street. Don't we fit the bill?"

Sydney took in her sister's appearance. When she had last seen her, Kaylee's hair was bright red with black streaks in it, and she was completely distraught with a life that had no direction. Now it was dyed a light blonde in a haircut that reminded Sydney of a classic 50's housewife. Kaylee appeared to be in complete control of her life and looked very happy. The change was staggering.

Will entered the room with a freshly unbundled young boy. "Grayson, meet your Aunt Sydney," he said introducing the boy again.

"On Tidnee," he muttered.

"He still has some occasional trouble with his S's," Kaylee explained. "Come to mama, sugar." She held her arms open for the young.

"Aunt Sydney," Sydney repeated. She was desperately trying to process this situation. "So that means that he's your son, Kaylee?"

"Yes, he's my son," Kaylee looked at Will wondering if she should tell her the rest. They were interrupted by a loud bang on the front door.

"That will be Wilson with the fresh firewood I paid him five dollars to cut for me," Will said. He left the room to go pay the boy.

"So, Sydney, explain to me a little more about the whole not being dead thing," Kaylee said sitting Grayson squarely on her lap. She decided it best to get off the topic of Grayson and where exactly he came from. That was a story for another day.

"Well, I woke up about a week ago on the streets of Hong Kong, literally. I have no idea where I've been the past two years or who I've been with. All I know is I come back to a life that I feel like I've only left for one day to find my best friend living in hiding with my sister and her son, my old partner running the whole CIA division, and my boyfriend married to another woman."

"Oh," Kaylee said. She couldn't think of anything better to say.

"That about sums up all the feelings I've been feeling for the past seven days," Sydney said with a laugh. "I don't know what to do with myself anymore."

"You'll figure it out," Kaylee said confidently. "We were told that the Covenant had kidnapped you and had you killed for your connection to me."

"Well, all I know is someone named Simon Walker kidnapped me. I don't know if he's a member of the Covenant or a freelancer. I just know what happened up until the point I lost consciousness on the day I disappeared."

"Simon Walker," Kaylee muttered thoughtfully. "That name sounds extremely familiar."

"Maybe you met him somewhere before. Do you think he's an associate of Mom's?"

"No," Kaylee said rather determinately. "There's no way Mom had any hand in your disappearance. Trust me. I lived with the woman for twenty-four years. She may be evil, but she did love you, Sydney."

"So do you think you can come back to L.A. with me?" Sydney asked as Will reentered the room. She really wanted to get off the subject of Irina Derevko, and she also really wanted to know the answer to the question she had come there to ask.

"I think it's about time we went back to reality," Kaylee said looking up at him.

"Are you sure that you want to do that?" Will asked her. "Just because Sydney's home doesn't mean that the danger has passed."

"I'm tired of running, Will," Kaylee admitted. "And tired of trying to be someone I'm not. No matter how hard I try, I'm not the kind of person that can be happy in some small town in Wisconsin. I guess I get it from my mother," she trailed off.

"Maybe it is time for you to get back," Will said. "That's the first time you've mentioned Irina in almost two years.

"Things aren't all smiles and puppies in L.A.," Sydney warned. "But I have to admit that I would love nothing more than for both of you to come back there with me."

Kaylee suddenly got a worried look on her face. "What?" Will asked.

"Will you still stay with Gray and me? He absolutely adores you, Will, and I know I've grown to depend on you. It would kill both of us if we had to..." she trailed off. She wasn't very good with the emotional stuff anymore. Not since Sark had died and left her alone to fend for herself.

"Of course," Will said smiling down at Kaylee and her son. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you two alone."

"Are you two romantically involved?" Sydney said taking note of the way they had seemed to forget she was present. "Because I'd really think I should know if you are."

Kaylee laughed lightly, and Will blushed. "No, we're not," Kaylee said. "He's just my only friend in the whole world. I think you know where I'm coming from with that."

"He's good at that," Sydney said smiling at her friend. "I think it's his calling in life to comfort women who have nowhere else to turn."

"When you're good at something, you stick with it," Will said with a smile. He turned to Kaylee. "How quick can you get packed?"

Kaylee grinned widely and flung herself into Will's arm. "This means so much to me, Will. Thank you."

Sydney watched as her sister rushed out of the room to go pack everything she would ever need or want. Turning back to her friend, she remembered one of the things she had been dying to ask him. "Will?" she said hesitantly.

"Yeah, Syd?"

"Do you know what happened to Francie? No one seems to be able to tell me what happened to her. I went to her restaurant when the CIA gave me a moment to breathe, and it was all closed down and boarded up. No one seemed to know anything."

"Don't worry," Will said reaching for her hand in reassurance. "Francie's fine now. At the time, she wasn't coping with your death so well. I was concerned for her, but I couldn't leave Kaylee alone to fend for herself. So I left Francie. I'm not proud, but I had to make a decision. I had the CIA send me constant updates on how Francie was doing, but you better believe I was feeling the constant guilt of abandoning her."

"Aw, Will. I'm sure she wasn't mad at you for leaving. She was my roommate for how many years. That gave her plenty of experience with coping with a friend who couldn't be there for her all the time. But I know exactly what you mean about the guilt."

"It took Francie almost the whole two years you were dead to get used to the fact that you weren't coming back to us. Honestly, the only other person I knew who took your death worse than that was Vaughn. A month or two ago, I got word that the restaurant had burned down. It took Kaylee hours to convince me not to go running back to L.A."

"It had to have been horrible for you, knowing that you couldn't go to her to help."

"It was. But Francie used the fire as a reason to get on with her life. She packed up and moved to London."

"She had always joked about doing that," Sydney said with a smile

"I know. The last I heard she had opened another restaurant there and was doing just fine. I convinced the CIA to let me contact her on a secure line. So I've talked to her a lot since she's moved overseas."

He stood up and went over to the desk that was sitting on the far wall. After a minute of rifling through the chaos in it, he returned to the coach and Sydney with a piece of paper in his hand. "This is her number in London, Syd. Why don't you give her a call while we're waiting? Let her know you're alive."

Sydney squeezed Will's hand in a display of her gratitude and got up to place a very important phone call.

"Back to living with both of the Bristow girls," Will said as he put his feet up on the coffee table. "Life could be a hell of a lot worse."