Sark slid his jacket onto his shoulders and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He couldn't believe that he was willingly jumping back into this life. He thought that when Kaylee had died he was out of it for good.

"She's not dead," he whispered to himself. He was still having trouble believing what Irina had told him was true. The fact that he had believed bad intel was completely against everything he thought he was. He was supposed to be efficient, and obviously he wasn't.

He ran his fingers through his newly cut hair and tried to think of reasons why he should just turn around and go back to being a wandering sailor. All the confidence that he had been known for seemed to have left his body in the past two years. He knew that no matter how much he hoped that when he found Kaylee she wouldn't come running back into his arms. She had gone into hiding. There were reasons behind that, reasons he didn't know.

"Are you sure that you're ready for this?" Irina asked as she entered the room. "I wouldn't feel ashamed if you needed more time to adjust."

"I want to see her, Irina," Sark said. "I need to see her."

She nodded. Sark started towards the door but was stopped by a hand on his chest. Irina looked into his eyes. "You might not be happy with what you find," she said elusively.

"I'll be happy just to see her alive again." He sighed. "I just want to see her again. I don't even have to talk to her. As long as I know she's all right, that will be enough."

Irina nodded again in approval. "You are ready to see her," she called over her shoulder as she left the room.

Sark paled. He was glad that Irina was buying his strong routine, but he knew deep down inside he might not be ready to see her again. It all went back to that theory about her having her reasons to disappear. She disappeared without leaving him any sort of notice that she was gone. He was pretty sure that that meant she wouldn't be so excited seeing him again.

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

"I can't believe I got a whole day away from my confusing life, kid," Kaylee said as she gently tossed her son into the air. "I thought that they would have your mommy locked up tight in a cell by now. They're suspicious of you and me, you know that?" She laughed as she sat down on the blanket she had spread out earlier. "And your mother's going crazy carrying on conversations with you that you don't understand. But at least you listen and don't judge."

Kaylee knew that Grayson understood what she was saying on an elementary level. Just as she would have predicted, what with him being the child in the Rambaldi prophecy, Grayson was a little ahead of his time in terms of language and brain development. He could understand concepts like his name, which wasn't really typical in a child until they were at least three years old. Nothing about this child's development could surprise her though.

She was still running the conversation she had had with her mother through her head as she watched Grayson crawl around the blanket. She had no idea why she had told her mother that she still trusted her. It just felt so easy to fall back into the way her life once was.

Grayson pulled her out of her thoughts by yanking hard on her hair.

"Ow," she yelled. "Let go of Mommy's hair right now, young man." Sighing she scooped him up into her arms. "You look like your father so much, little man. I miss him a lot you know. He would know exactly what to do with this whole mess if he were here. But he's not."

"Up clouds," Grayson said.

"That's right," Kaylee said with a smile. "Your daddy is up in the clouds with the angels." She tried to smile as she felt the tears slip out of her eyes.

Sark watched this whole scene well out of her line of view. He couldn't make out what she was talking to the young boy about, but it seemed to be upsetting her. She was biting her lip like she did every time that someone upset it. He didn't find it strange at all that he could still remember all her mannerisms.

"You should really go talk to her," Irina whispered in his ear.

"I can't," Sark said. He knew that this probably made him seem weak to Irina, but at this point he didn't care. "She's happy, even if she's upset right now. She made a life without me. I don't want to take that away from her."

"How do you know her life is what she wants it to be?" Irina asked. "Go talk to her. At the very least, she deserves to know that you're here. And that kid she's babysitting can't be better company than you."

Sark knew that Irina was telling him the truth, but he couldn't make his legs move no matter how hard he tried. He was scared that this was going to be the biggest mistake he ever made. It was so much easier when he thought Kaylee was dead.

Irina sighed. "She's packing up and leaving. I'm not going to help you find a way to contact her again if you blow this opportunity." She moved to walk away from their surveillance spot. "I'm leaving you here to decide. Don't be a stranger." She gave him a light kiss on the cheek and left.

Sark stared at Kaylee as she packed up the blanket she was sitting on while keeping a close eye on the young boy who was with her. He was weighing the pros and cons of talking with her. He knew that it would satisfy the desire he felt inside of himself to talk with her and make sure it was actually her standing there alive and well. On the other hand, he didn't think he could take it if this person turned out to not be Kaylee but just some person who bared a striking resemblance to her.

He turned away from the sight of her knowing that he had to make this decision soon. Knowing this was probably a cowardly way out of the situation, he let himself stare off into the distance for a minute. If he turned around and she was gone, then the situation was solved. If she were still standing there, he would go over and talk to her.

He felt a light tug on the right side of his pant leg. The young boy he had seen Kaylee with had walked over to where he was standing and was now amusing himself with Sark's leg.

"Thanks for making my decision for me, kid," Sark said. He bent down and picked the boy up into his arms. He began to walk to where Kaylee was standing screaming the same word over and over.

"I take it that you're referring to this charming young man and not just a color," Sark said with a smirk.

Kaylee stared at him in shock and rushed over. She tore Grayson from Sark's arms and began to back away. "I don't know who the hell you are, but this is not funny. I won't hesitate to kill you even though my son is present."

"Your son?" Sark cried. It was his turn to be shocked. "You have a son, Kaylee?"

"Listen, you sick bastard. I'm not going to have a discussion with you. I don't know who put you up to cosmetic surgery, but it's not going to work. Andrew Sark is dead." She reached into the bag she had dropped on the ground when Grayson disappeared and pulled out

"That's the handgun I bought you," Sark said as he remembered the day he had given it to her. He was scared that the guards Irina had assigned to her weren't adequate enough protection.

"This is the gun that Sark bought for me. Any fool could find out that information," Kaylee said. She looked around to make sure that no one had noticed her take the gun out of her bag.

"Why do you think I'm dead?" Sark asked. This conversation was definitely not going the way he had planned. Why hadn't Irina mentioned that Kaylee thought he was dead?

"Because you are dead. Andrew Sark died in an explosion in Hong Kong two years ago. Why would he mysteriously show up the day after I come out of Witness Protection?"

"You were in Witness Protection." The last few pieces of the puzzle were clicking together in Sark's head. "That explains why I wasn't able to find proof of you being alive. Kaylee, I thought you were killed by the Covenant. I searched for you, but all traces of you had disappeared. You went into Witness Protection, and the CIA did a great job of covering your tracks. I thought you were dead," Sark repeated.

"That's great and all. But there's one little problem. You're not Sark," Kaylee clicked to safety off of her gun.

"Don't shoot. I can prove to you that I'm Sark. Ask me anything you want. Anything at all."

"I don't have time for these games. You're not him. He's not alive."

"Why don't you believe me? I'm standing right here in front of your eyes. I had your son in my arms minutes ago. I could have taken him and run if I wanted to hurt you. I don't. I'm not a danger to you. I never was. Didn't I keep you safe all those months in Newcastle?"

"You know about Newcastle?" Kaylee said. She lowered her gun and shoved it back into the bag. She looked over to where Grayson was playing in the grass. "You stay right there, honey," she instructed. Turning her attention back to Sark, she walked up to his face and stared intently at him for a few minutes.

"Like what you see?" Sark asked.

"You certainly look like him. How did you know about Newcastle?" she asked.

"Because I spent the best moments of my life in Australia with you. That's how I know about Newcastle."

"Is it really you?" Kaylee asked. Her eyes were staring to fill up with tears in hopes that this was really Sark.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you for the past ten minutes."

"I thought you were dead," she repeated.

"I know. You made that very clear in the first part of our conversation." Sark laughed lightly thinking about the situation he was in. "So how have you been?"

Kaylee stared at him in disbelief.