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** I am in no way associated with Alias. The usual disclaimers apply.

PART NINE

Sark looked pale as he laid in the infirmary, and Sydney saw him wince as he tried to position his body so that he was comfortable.

She watched him yet again through a two-way mirror. As much as she hated him, she was oddly drawn to this window, to this looking glass into Sark's psyche.

A doctor approached from behind and spoke in a slow southern drawl that almost sounded faked. "Mr. Sark is doing just fine. He should be up and about in no time."

Sydney's lips flatlined. "That's too bad."

The doctor shrugged. He was tired of dealing with clandestine ops agents. They were all so highly strung.

She stole one last glance at her nemesis before turning on her heel and walking away, taking care to avoid Vaughn as he powered down the hall importantly.

***

"What's this?"

Sydney pointed to a trickle of water running down the glass that encased Sark in his cell at the CIA Ops Centre, and slowly pooling on the hard concrete ground.

Sark raised his eyebrows. "It's a leak."

Sydney half smirked at him. "Obviously."

"The terrifying thing is I think it is coming from the men's bathroom." His eyes widened in mock fear.

Sydney almost chuckled but mentally checked herself before she did and instead gave a half smile. It was probably not proper CIA agent etiquette to laugh at a terrorist's jokes, no matter how many missions you had been on together.

This mission would be the 10th mission she had completed with Sark, and she hated to admit that she often fought the urge to laugh or joke with him and found his company not as stomach-churning as she would have imagined. He had an infectious personality, and a killer smile. She grimaced. Killer, exactly.

Sark saw the laugh in her eyes at his joke and his body went all tingly. He loved that he could have had such an affect on her. His heart fluttered slightly as he anticipated her quiet giggle, but it never came. He looked to his feet, and when he glanced back up at her, Sydney Bristow: CIA Agent had returned, and was fixing him with a cold stare. A stare he knew he deserved.

"We have a briefing with Weiss in an hour and a half. Just thought I'd give you a heads up." Sydney's voice was even and emotionless.

Sark nodded without looking at her.

***

Weiss smiled warmly at Sydney as she entered the briefing room. God she loved him. These days he was her best friend and she knew without doubt that he would always be there for her, no matter what.

Marshall bumbled in behind her, clapping a large metal box down on the briefing room table. Sark was led in soon after, hands and feet manacled customarily.

"Right." Weiss smiled. "Now that everyone's here..."

"Wait..." Sydney raised an eyebrow skeptically. "It's just us two?" She motioned to Sark and herself.

"Yeah..." Weiss shot Syd a reassuring glance.

"We've ascertained that Mr Sark..." Weiss paused and swallowed when he said the terrorist's name, "Is no longer a level 7 security threat, and as this mission is clandestine to the extreme, we can only send in two men."

Sydney nodded.

Sark opened the briefing folder in front of him and frowned. "Why me? I have no knowledge of this facility that would be of value to the operation."

Weiss shrugged. "This one comes from above me."

Sydney pursed her lips suspiciously.

Weiss pressed a button and a satellite photo of what looked like a farm appeared on the large screen behind him.

"A farm, right? Wrong. The information we have retrieved, mostly thanks to you two, have revealed that this is no ordinary crop patch. Far from it. This is a covenant training facility."

Sydney looked up at him.

"Here, covenant operatives are trained as clandestine agents in much the same way a CIA agent would be. Almost exactly. This is because they have a mole in the CIA training facility, affectionately known to us all as 'The Farm'."

Marshall raised his hand. "Is that why.. errr.. this facility is a farm?"

"No, I think it just seemed like a good business front..." Weiss was often thrown by Marshall's seemingly naive questions.

"Now, not only does the covenant have a mole at The Farm, but in practically every other branch of the CIA. This is bad, people. Very bad. But, we know that these moles had to have trained at this facility... right?" He motioned to the picture behind him.

"So this means we have a chance of identifying them, and perhaps preventing these other covenant trainees from becoming moles."

Sydney nodded. This sounded like a plan, a real plan that might actually leave a dent in the mysterious new terrorist group.

"Your mission is to infiltrate this facility and gather intelligence that might give us an advantage if we were to send in a tactical team to disable it permanently. Most importantly, we're after records that will identify the moles already planted within the CIA. Marshall?"

Weiss turned to Marshall for his OpTech analyses.

"Now, this facility which I like to call, The Farm 2, has like, state of the art security systems, right. I'm talking futuristic-type state-of-the-art. What does that mean anyways? 'State-of-the-art'?"

Sark, Sydney and Weiss shrugged.

"Never mind, what's important to note is that The Farm 2 does not allow radio transmitions of any kind, so if you were trying to communicate with us like, 'Hey this is mountaineer... agent down'..." His eyes darted to Sark, who eyed him steadily, and Marshall veered back onto a less touchy train of thought.

"Well, they would detect that and you would be, well, in big trouble."

He paused and drew in a log breath before opening the metal box in front of him.

"But that's why I whipped up these babies."

He pulled out four small silver discs.

"You just pop these on here..." He placed a disc on either side of his temples. "And wham! Your thoughts become the like, radio transmissions... well, they would if someone else had these discs on their head."

"Is that even possible?" Sydney couldn't keep the skepticism from her voice.

Marshall looked at her almost cockily. "I'm THAT good."

"So I would be wearing the other set?" Sark's voice was soft but strong.

"Yes." Marshall looked between Sark and Sydney uncomfortably.

"No way!" Sydney and Sark spoke in unison.

"It's the only way." Weiss looked at Sydney apologetically.

"But... all our thoughts?"

Marshall looked at her with a shrug. "I haven't quite figured out how not to yet... I'm not THAT good."

Sydney narrowed her eyes.

"Be ready for deployment tonight." Weiss said almost too cheerily, trying to break the tension.

Marshall packed up and left uncomfortabley, Weiss followed quickly.

"Syd..." Sark began tentatively. "I just want to say... working with you has been..."

She looked up at him. "Sark this is going to be... weird."

"I'm not talking about that. I mean, you've always treated me... despite what you think of me... how much you hate me..."

It wasn't often Sark was lost for words, but he couldn't get it out, he couldn't tell her what he wanted to say. Although he doubted she would listen.

"Sark, I work with you because I have to. Everyday I fight the urge to strangle you with my bare hands. The only reason I don't is because this country needs the information you have." She tried to sound vindictive - tried to sound spiteful.

He winced at her words. It was almost pathetic the way she revered her beliefs of right and wrong, of black and white. But he wouldn't say that to her. He had caused her too much pain already - he knew that. So he sat silently until 2 US Marshals entered and led him away, the metal of his cuffs scraping along the ground, sending chills through Sydney.

One day she might be able to forgive him, forgive Sloane, and forgive herself. But that day was far away, and it still hurt to look at him, it still churned her stomach to think of all the things he had done, to think of the way he had Francie killed, the way he didn't care.

She wondered if that day would ever come.