Sark kicked the door as hard as he could manage for the tenth time that minute.

"I've never seen you show such emotion," Sydney said. She was truly shocked that he was actually behaving like this upset him. He was the one who was supposed to be keeping his calm, and she was the one who was supposed to be erupting with emotions.

"The woman I love is being hunted down by a person you've admitted to almost being your equal. Sydney, if she has half the talent you do, Kaylee is in deep trouble."

"But Kaylee is just as good as me. Anyway, they're going after her child. You'd be surprised at how much strength a mother whose child's life is in jeopardy can have. I've seen it in my mother's eyes a few times when she talks about Kaylee."

Sark slumped in acceptance of what she was saying. "I just wished we could get out of here." He began to look around the room for any sign of an escape route.

"There's nothing," she admitted. "We're just going to have to wait until someone realizes that we're locked in here."

The pair kept scanning the room in a silent agreement that they couldn't just sit still and let the situation play out. Sark started to feel behind paintings for some type of switch. He knew it was pretty unrealistic for him to find one, but there had been a couple times this tactic had saved him from a jam. After going all the way around the room, he turned his attention back to Sydney. He noticed that she had stopped searching through the desk she was sitting at. Instead, she was biting her nails in a surprisingly nervous manner.

"Don't tell me you're getting claustrophobic," Sark said. "Because that would just be an incredible cliché. Not to mention something that I don't want to have to deal with right now."

"No, I'm just thinking about something I have to do rather soon. It's going to piss my sister off so much, but I have to."

"You're sounding incredibly suspicious. And you're not making any sense."

Sydney just smiled weakly at him.

"I know something that will cheer you up," Sark said as he sat in front of her on the desk. "I bet at dinner you were wondering where I disappeared to those few minutes before Walker made his entrance."

"I was wondering at the time, but I think now I have more important issues on my mind."

"Well, you can forget those for the time being. It doesn't help to dwell on things you can alter or fix." Sark smiled deviously at his companion. "I had to place a very important phone call, and then I had a nice conversation with our 'friend', Lauren Vaughn."

"Really?" Sydney said. Now she was definitely intrigued.


"I found out a few things that will make you very happy."

"You figured out why exactly she was here?"

"It seems that it all has to do with your mother and father really."

"My parents are always mixed up in the events that affect my life the most. Why should this be any different?"

"Remember hearing that your parents, in their search for you, stumbled upon a list of higher ups in the Covenant?"

"Yes, that's what got my Mom her pardon. She and Dad gave the CIA information that they said would speed up their mission to destroy the Covenant like the Alliance was destroyed. To bad they couldn't have figure out that I was alive. Then I could have been found, and this whole mess wouldn't be happening." She threw her hands up in disgust.

Sark chose to ignore her little tirade. "Well, one of the more influential people on the list was the real reason they weren't acting on the intel. Now until they realized where the whole thing led to and who was involved."

"I suppose I should be pressuring you to get to the point, but we have a long while before someone finds us. So take your time. Beat around the point all you want."

He rolled his eyes. "Anyway, it was Senator Reed who your mother and father uncovered. He's been working with the Covenant for at least two years now. In fact, he's slowly become one of the higher officials in the organization."

"Lauren's father is a member of the Covenant?" Sydney knew that Sark had been building up to something that would be huge, but this was unbelievable.

"That's what I was talking to Lauren about. After the phone call to my source, I let her know that I knew her daddy wasn't exactly playing nice with the American government. I made it sound like I was going to blackmail her. Typical me behavior, you know. I figured she wouldn't get suspicious if I was behaving exactly as everyone would expect me to act. Then she asked me what I was doing here with you. Honestly, I wonder myself sometimes."

"She should know that I can't go anywhere without my worse half. It makes me look so much better." Sydney flipped her hair over her shoulder vainly.

He continued explaining. "I fed her some bullshit about using you to try to regain my footing in the spy world. I have to admit I still have the gift of being a good liar."

"And you're still a cocky bastard," Sydney said with a laugh.

"There was a particular bit of information I found out that I didn't tell Lauren. It seems Daddy isn't the only one working with the Covenant these days. Lauren Reed isn't exactly who she claims she is. She's not even Senator Reed's daughter."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Senator Reed's daughter died eighteen months when she was visiting family back in the U.K. The Senator kept her death extremely quiet for multiple reasons. The most important reason dealt with his workings within the Covenant. Seems they had been developing a body-doubling program that would allow people to completely assume the identities of others. They used that program on one of the Covenant's best spies."

"They made her into Senator Reed's daughter."

"And he went along with it. You want to talk about emotionless bastards. He's a hell of a lot worse than I ever was. He reintegrated his fake daughter into his political and personal life. And she got a job with the National Security Council. My guess would be her assignment was to infiltrate the United States government and act as a mole. It seems like she's been succeeding in it that."

"What I don't understand is if the government knew this why didn't they move on this information?" she asked.

"They did. Only it was in a different way than anyone would guess. It was all Dixon's idea. When your mother and father came to him with the information that Senator Reed was a member of the Covenant, Dixon figured that the infiltration of the CIA by the Covenant must go a little deeper than that. He decided to hold the information in hopes of discovering who else in our government was working with the Covenant."

Sydney nodded, urging him to continue. "The CIA received some intel on the Covenant's doubling operations. This was also kept silent at Dixon's request. At this point, he was beginning to suspect Lauren Reed was a traitor. This is where Vaughn factors in to the whole situation."

"He was caught up in this mess, too?"

"Of course he is. He did marry Lauren Reed." Sark paused. "Let's take a step back. Agent Vaughn has to have told you how he met his future wife."

"He briefly mentioned that he met her when he was doing his mandatory counseling."

"He did go through counseling to deal with your death, Sydney. He didn't lie to you when he said that it practically destroyed him. Vaughn was off active duty for six months in which all he did was go to counseling session after counseling session. By the end of that period, he had begun to pull his life back together. That was around the time that your parents brought the intel to the CIA. Dixon was beginning to put two and two together. He needed an agent to do some infiltrating for the CIA, if you know what I mean."

"So he picked the one agent he knew would have enough determination to want to bring down the organization that was now affiliated with Simon Walker."

"The agent who everyone was looking down upon because of his complete breakdown. Vaughn was the perfect candidate. He didn't have much left in his life, so he risked it all to bring Lauren Reed and her 'father' to justice."

"Weiss has been hinting about the fact that Vaughn and Dixon have been hiding something from me."

"Yeah, that would the sham he calls a marriage. He dated Lauren Reed and regained his status with the CIA. They saw the improvements he gained from the counseling and realized he was moving on with Lauren. Vaughn had discussed with Dixon previously that he was willing to go as far as need to get this assignment done."

"Which is why he went as far as marrying that monster." Sydney couldn't believe what Sark was telling her. She was almost too shocked to think clearly, but there was enough clarity present for at least one question to dawn on her. "How did you find out all this information in the few minutes that you disappeared?"

"I had my suspicions about Senator Reed before tonight. I had figured out most of the story from information I had received before my 'death' and from intel I've gathered since returning. The Lauren/Vaughn part was new to me, though. If I had known any of that, Sydney, you know I would have told you immediately."

"I know, Andrew." She put her hand on his shoulder to show her trust. "You've really shown me who you really are these past few months. I want to thank you for that."

"You're not going to get sentimental on me. Are you, Agent Bristow?"

"Of course. I'm a woman. It's what we do when we're trapped in rooms with no idea when we'll be rescued." He laughed. "Honestly, though, I want to tell you that I think your theory about me being a good you and you being a bad me might be slightly wrong. I think we're essentially the same person. We're both good inside. If you can't see that, you're just blind."

"I think that this whole trapped thing is getting to your head," he joked.

Sydney smiled at him. "You made my night by investigating the Lauren situation and then telling me what was going on."

"I know."

"So, I want to do something nice for you in return."

"If you're offering me your body, Sydney, I don't know if I'm in a position to say no."

"You jerk!" she yelled. "Can't you ever be serious?"

"Only with the people I don't care about."

"You remember I was nervous about something earlier?"

"There was a mention of something you had to tell someone that would piss your sister off completely."

"Well--" Sydney was about to tell him when there was a large knock on the door. Someone was screaming her name on the other side.