Waiting patiently for Jack Bristow to return from his mission was not Sydney's idea of a fun time. She had been the first one notified when his flight from Madagascar had landed. Now she found herself sitting in his cubicle hoping that he followed normal routine and checked in at the office before going home.

"How are you doing, Syd?" Vaughn said sticking his head into Jack's cubicle.

"Okay. I just wish my father would get here soon. I feel like a fish out of water in this office."

"You'll adjust," he said with a smile.

"Where's your wife?" Sydney asked. She didn't mean it to sound as hurtful as bitter as it came out.

"Lauren has some official NSC business to do. She's taken her laptop home and locked herself in her office."

"She makes you happy, doesn't she?" Sydney said. "I can see that when you two are together." She could see his shoulders stiffen slightly at that comment.

"She's my wife," was all he said in reply. "Jack just came in to the facility. I'll leave you alone so you can talk with him."

"Thanks, Vaughn," Sydney said with a smile. She still couldn't understand why every conversation she had with him ended so strangely.

Sydney stood up to watch her father move across the facility making his way to Dixon's office. He was obviously intended to debrief his boss as soon as possible so he could go home. Sydney had done it a million times, so she knew that if she didn't stop him now, she wouldn't catch him until the next day. She hurried to intercept him.

"Dad!" she yelled.

Hearing his daughter's voice, Jack scanned the office. "Sydney, what are you doing here in the office? I thought Dixon had ordered you to take some time off to reacclimate yourself to this environment."

"He did. I'm a Bristow. I didn't listen," Sydney said jokingly.

"What is it you need to speak to me about?" Jack grasped her arm and led her to a meeting room that was unoccupied.

"I want to know how the hell you can trust Mom to the point of letting the CIA pardon her."

"Sydney, your mother gave me unlimited access to all her resources in our search to find you. I'm not a stupid man. I know that she has her own agenda. But I believed her when she said that she wanted to make sure you were safe."

"I thought you said you would never trust her."

"I know I said that. When she was a part of our family... you were too young to remember what that was like. I do. She does have a genuine love for you, Sydney. It's been warped and altered by the life that we live, but it's still there."

"So, you let her be pardoned by the government because you think she loves me?" Sydney asked. Her conversations with her father were usually pretty confusing, but this one didn't even come close to making any sense.

"I allowed her to be pardoned so that she would let her guard down a little. I want to know what her agenda is. The easiest way to find out is to let her get comfortable with me." Jack looked at his daughter intently. "I don't know if I ever told you this. One of the reasons your mother left when she did was because I was getting suspicious of her. I was noticing the little inconsistencies in her behavior."

"She saw that you were letting her get comfortable in her life so that you could gather information on her."

"Exactly. When she realized that I was beginning to suspect she wasn't really Laura Bristow, she was forced to abandon her mission and flee."

"So you were trying to gather data on her organization. That was why you let the government pardon her." Sydney thought it over for a second. "How's that working out for you?"

"To be honest, not that well. She's currently m.i.a. She scheduled a trip with the CIA to go to Boston, but the man whose job it was to tail her lost her."

"The CIA has no idea where my mother is right now?"

"No, they don't. Which completely defeats all the reasons I let the government pardon her without protesting. I thought with the CIA keeping constant surveillance on her, we might find out what she has been up to the past two years."

"Doesn't really work when every time she makes a move the CIA can't find her."

"Just add it to the list of mistakes I've made when it comes to your mother," Jack admitted. "I'm sorry if that's disappointing to you, Sydney."

Sydney sighed. "That's not what bothers me about this situation, Dad. I know that you can handle being tricked by Mom. When you let her be pardoned, it was an acceptable risk in your eyes. The thing that concerns me is Kaylee. Mom has a special bond with her. I'm afraid that now that all the players are back in action she's going to go running back to life she once had."

"I don't think she'd subject her child to that," Jack said. "Being a parent changes the way a person thinks and acts."

"I'm just scared that her being a mother is not going to be enough," Sydney admitted. "I'm scared that she's going to go back to Mom and prove that Rambaldi's prophecy is right."

Jack put his arm around his daughter in comfort and gave her a smile. "Don't let it bother you, Sydney. I don't think Kaylee will be having to make that decision for a while yet."

Sydney smiled back at him. "I guess I should be focusing more on trying to figure out where I've been for the past two years than worrying about where everyone else has been."

"You're worried about what you might have done when you were missing," Jack observed.

"I was with the Covenant. Obviously I served some great purpose or they would have just held me for ransom, tortured me, or had me killed. There was some reason that they wanted me to stay alive. I don't know if I was running missions for them or not. It kills me not knowing how I spent two years of my life."

"You'll figure it out eventually, Sydney. At least you know that this Simon Walker had something to do with your disappearance. That provides us a solid base to start searching from."

"You're going to help?" Sydney asked. She was surprised that her father was so willing to help. He always seemed to have his own agenda to contend to.

"I think that finding out where you've been the past two years is going to be the key to answering a lot of questions that CIA has," Jack admitted. "And I know how much it upsets it. I am your father."

Sydney wiped her eyes and stood up from the chair she had sat down in a few minutes earlier. "I'm going to go talk with Dixon. Maybe I can convince him to put out a search for Simon Walker. I might be able to get the answers I need from him." Sydney began to walk out of the room but turned back as she almost reached the door. "Don't give up on watching Mom. I don't know if she had something directly to do with my missing two years, but I think she's connected in some way. I still don't believe that she wanted to find me out of the goodness of her heart. It doesn't add up."

"I'll try to keep tabs on her still. Even if it doesn't help in your search, it may help ease your fears that she's trying to get at Kaylee," Jack admitted.