"You have two seconds to explain before I kill you on this spot, Walker," she snarled.

"Don't bluff, Syd. I can read your facial expressions like a book." Simon put a hand on her shoulder, which she quickly shrugged off.

"Don't touch me," she said very carefully with lots of anger.

"Listen. We need to get out of here. Your friends will be expecting you. I'll explain everything and give you Arvin Sloane to take into custody if you'll just leave with me."

Sydney nodded. "I'll just warn you, though. This drug should be wearing off soon. When that happens, all bets are off."

She felt Simon gently guide her to the door. Once she was outside, she saw him quickly duck back into the building and out again.

"I had to get Sloane," he explained.

"So, what were you saying about us working together for two years?"

"Your missing two years, to be specific. I'm going to try to fill you in as much as possible. But honestly I don't know how much of what went on that you already know. Some of this stuff may be a little shocking to you."

"I can take it. And let's assume that I don't know anything."

"I'm an agent of MI5. I have been since I was twenty. Born and raised in Belfast. I was always a loner. Couldn't really keep a partner. Almost lost my job a few times because of it. I got transferred to a more radical division. It was a section of MI5 dubbed Project Oceana. There are only two people out there who know of its existence and aren't a direct participant in the project. It was very hush hush."

"That's nice. What does this have to do with me? You should get to the point because my vision's starting to clear up already," Sydney said.

"I was given a deep cover assignment for the Ocean Division because I didn't have any attachments in my personal or professional life. Actually, it's more like I couldn't form personal attachments. There was a girl once that I dated for a few months." Simon paused, lost in his thoughts.

"Must have been some girl if she can still send you into a daze now."

"She was. We had a whirlwind kind of romance, but she was way too young for me. And I knew that I wasn't anything special to her. I was undercover, using my Simon Walker alias in fact. I was stationed in Paris trying to infiltrate one of their crime syndicates. I met this girl. She saw me in my bad boy persona, and I think she decided to use me to make her mother mad. Her mother was really protective of her."

"Does this perfect girl have a name?"

Simon laughed. "Yeah. Kaylee."

"Kaylee?" Sydney asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, it was your sister. First time you meet one of you Bristow women, you remember it. Can't say I made a huge impact on her life so I wouldn't imagine she would put two and two together."

Sydney thought back. "Actually when I first mentioned you to her, she said you sounded familiar."

"Wow. Guess I wasn't that bad." He paused. "Moving on in the story of our time together. I infiltrated the Covenant by doing exactly what my superiors at the Oceana Division told me to. All I had to do was take a CIA agent they had deemed expendable and sell them to the Covenant. That would get me in the front door."

"The government of the United Kingdom had me kidnapped? They thought I was expendable?" Sydney realized that Simon had been right. She was shocked at what he said, and she definitely wasn't about to believe the bullshit coming out of his mouth.

"I know it sounds far fetched. But my superiors thought that having someone inside the Covenant would be more important than your life. It's hard to hear. I realize that. I'm not proud of what I did to you. I hope you believe me when I say that I did make it up to you."

"So, you kidnapped me? Then what?"

"I was told to sell you directly to the Covenant. That was my mission. But I almost didn't accomplish it. I was having second thoughts so I did the only thing that wouldn't be suspicious. I called your mother, Irina Derevko, and offered for her to buy you from me. I would have let her, too, but my superiors got wind of my phone conversation while it was in progress. Let's just say that they interrupted the negotiations."

"You tried to sell me to my mother? I'm supposed to believe this?"

"Ask her. She'll confirm it." Simon gently nudged Sydney so that she veered to the right slightly. "We're going to have to cross a few roads now. I may have to touch you to keep you from getting run over." Sydney glared at him. "Anyway, I sold you to the Covenant. It took them six months to break you. Only they never really did."

"What did they do to me?"

"They tried the conventional way of breaking you which didn't work, of course. Then they decided to do a more drastic procedure. They altered your memories so that you would believe you were a free-lance assassin named Julia Thorne. I was a part of the team doing the brainwashing. I convinced the doctors to give you a memory of me. That I was your partner on quite a few missions. I made you think you trusted me greatly. It was the only thing I could think of to do to save you. I never wanted to see you turned into a monster."

"Comforting," she said. She heard Sloane groan from where he was positioned over Simon's shoulder. "Let me do the honors." She punched him hard in the head.

"Once you had accepted the Julia Thorne identity, we became partners. I was with you in Berlin. I personally rigged the explosives that collapsed St. Patrick's Cathedral. You trusted me."

"Why?"

"Because I was the only one who was telling you the truth. After our first few missions, I told you that your name wasn't really Julia Thorne, but it was Sydney Bristow. I explained your whole life to you and what had happened. You didn't believe me but you were intrigued. I was counting on that. It made you want to keep me close by, especially when I told you I could get proof. Which is why the whole time when we were away on missions together, I was slowly bringing back the memories of your previous life."

"That was what you meant by making it up to me." She couldn't help but admit she was starting to believe what he was saying. It was a very convincing and detailed story.

"The Covenant began to notice that your brainwashing seemed to be wearing off. That was because I was deliberately taking it away. They gave you a solo mission that I didn't find out about until it was too late."

"That was when they sent me to burn down Francie's restaurant with her inside?"

"Yes. I managed to find out discreetly. So I asked for some vacation time since my partner was otherwise occupied. They granted it to me and I was on the first flight to L.A. I was able to stop you before you set the place on fire. I explained who Francie was to you. Together we waited until the restaurant closed that night. Then we set fire to it. It was a necessary thing to do. The Covenant needed proof that you were at least willing to kill your friend, even though the timing was wrong."

"Then I went to Geneva, right?"

"You never went to Geneva, Syd. After we burned down the restaurant, you got on the first plane back to Rome. You returned to the Covenant."

"Sark had intel that said I went to a doctor in Geneva to get my memories back."

"That was our cover-up story. Since, obviously, when you went back to the CIA I was still undercover, both of us knew we couldn't let you remember me and who I really was." Simon stopped walking when they reached a parking garage. "I have a car parked in there. Are you comfortable enough to get into a car with me?"

"Yes. I'll trust you at least that much. But my family and friends aren't that far away."

"I'm just going to drive us around until I've explained everything to you. Is that okay?"

Sydney thought about it. She knew that her being missing would worry everyone, but they had all agreed on certain rules. If a person was went missing, you held your position for three hours after they should have showed up. Then you leave them behind. There was plenty of time left before anyone would leave her behind. "And Sark probably got Kaylee out of the facility long before I ran into Sloane and Simon," she thought. She nodded to Simon as he started the car. "So if I didn't go to Geneva, what happened?"

"After returning to the Covenant, their suspicions of you faded slightly. But they were still there. You and I agreed that I needed to restore all of your memories and send you back to the CIA. So during our next mission, I did just that."

"We were in Hong Kong," Sydney whispered.


"Yeah, we were. It was so funny. The night before you were so excited about breaking the Covenant's hold on you, you started dancing around our hotel room. You ran smack into the coffee table. But you just kept dancing and chanting about how you wouldn't even remember why your knee hurt the next day."

Realization dawned on her face. "That was why my knee hurt when I woke up in that alley."

"Yeah. I snuck some of the Covenant's more sophisticated technology with us to Hong Kong. It took me over three hours but I put you pretty much back to normal. Like I said, we had decided that you couldn't remember anything about me. So I just erased your memory of being in the Covenant. But I also made sure that you would be able to regain those memories somewhere down the line."

"Thank you."

"The procedure left you unconscious. I took you to the alley behind our hotel and watched over you from a distance until I saw you wake up."

"What did you tell the Covenant?"

"I told them that you were supposed to rendezvous with me at a restaurant across town. You never showed up. I followed protocol and left you for dead. Sounds harsh, but it's the way the Covenant works. Then, you showed up in the CIA's hands again." He looked over at her. "Do you have any questions?"

"A million," she said staring out the window and watching Rome pass by. She looked back over at him. "But I'll limit it to the ones that I really want to have answered. Do you know what the scar on my stomach is from?"

"You and I almost got captured on a mission in Kenya. The only way we could convince the people holding guns to our heads was if I killed you. I won't get into details. Mainly because I don't want to relive what you made me do to you. Sometime I'll tell you the whole story when I can handle it. I stabbed you and left you for dead. You managed to drag yourself to the nearest hospital. I found you there one day later. First words out of your mouth were asking me if it was going to be a pretty scar."

"I'm sorry for making you do that, Simon," she said honestly.

"Please call me Colin. I'm not Simon Walker anymore. And I never want to be him again."

"Okay, Colin. What was your relationship with Anna Espinosa?"

"After you left the Covenant, I pretended like I was devastated. Seems I was secretly in love with you the whole time we were partners. Anna comforted me. I used her for information. She thought we were in love and she was controlling me. She thought I was weak."

"She was wrong."

"Yes, she was," Simon said with a smile. "What next?"

"In Cairo, you said we had a few great nights in Vienna. If you and I weren't sleeping together, what the hell were you talking about?"

"I was testing you to see if you were remembering the memories of your missing two years. I said we had pent-up energy which we let out. I wanted it to sound like I meant sex. That way if you got offended, you obviously didn't know what I was talking about. If you didn't get offended, you knew what I was alluding to. We got into a few bar fights during our mission in Vienna. You always loved an after-mission brawl."

"I still do," Sydney informed him. She heard Sloane moan from his position in the back seat. "Looks like he's having a bad dream."

"He deserves it."

"Damn right." Sydney got quiet rather quickly after that comment.

"What's the matter?"

"You said to me in Cairo that I deserved the beating you were giving me. If we were so close, why did you attack me?"

"It was by your orders. You told me to do anything I needed to to keep you from finding out your memories before they came back naturally. I had your permission to do anything except kill you. You couldn't stand the idea of having wasted two years of your life for nothing."

"What was with the invitation to your gathering? You asked me to wear a black dress."

"Another test to see if you were remembering. We had a mission in Venice that you wore a black dress for. It almost got us killed."

"My dress almost got us killed?"

"You got it stuck in the elevator door. Armed guards were chasing us. They were firing at us, and you got your damn dress stuck. I got shot in the arm because of your black dress."


"I apologize on the behalf of my black dress."

"Tell the dress I accept. To continue with my explanation of that gathering, you, your parents, and Sark weren't originally supposed to be there. I was told by the Covenant that I was to auction off your sister's location. I didn't want to see Kaylee put into harm so I did the only thing I could. I sneaked your names onto the guest list. The higher ups didn't even notice until it was too late, and they couldn't even pin it on me for sure."

"It was the only way you had to keep her safe."

"Exactly. And I didn't turn those lights off on you when you were fighting Anna. That was a few of the other operatives who were at the gathering. I would never have let Anna take Kaylee's address from me if I had thought you wouldn't stop her."

Sydney saw the CIA van about a half-mile away from them. "I have no reason to trust what you're saying to me is the truth. But I do."

"I think deep down you know that I am someone you trusted once." He pulled the car up next to the van.

"Sydney!" Vaughn yelled as he busted out of the van and saw her. "What happened?"


"I fought with Anna. She broke my earpiece." Seeing Vaughn look from her to where Simon was getting Sloane out of the backseat, she added, "I picked up a few friends."

Vaughn reached to pull his gun out, but Sydney placed her hand on his. "Michael Vaughn, this is Colin Meyer. He was my partner when I was with the Covenant."


"What are you talking about, Syd? That's Simon Walker. You hate him."

"It's a long story, but he's not really Simon Walker. He helped me get away from the Covenant twice, once two years ago and once an hour ago. And he took down Sloane and offered him to me and the CIA."

"I trust you," Vaughn said as he relaxed. "And if you say that… Colin… is okay, then I believe you."

"Where are my sister and Sark?" Sydney asked.

"You don't know?" Vaughn asked.


"No, I don't know. What's going on?"

"I thought they would be with you."

"They're not. Sark was supposed to get Kaylee and leave the facility. Why the hell isn't he here?"

"I don't know, but he only has about one hour to get here. If he's not here in time, we have to leave him and Kaylee behind."