Sydney ran down the wet pavement of Rio de Janeiro, trying to focus only on the sound of her feet hitting the pavement in a steady rhythm. She knew if she stopped running for even a second, the men chasing her would catch up. Usually when she encountered opposition, they were fairly less skilled then her, and she never had trouble defeating them. However, these men chasing her were of a higher caliber.

She chanced a quick glance over her right shoulder and was dismayed to see that, indeed, there were still five men running behind her. And they were beginning to close the gap.

Focusing back on just running at a quick, steady pace, Sydney made a quick right as she started hearing gun shots ring out from behind her. The safe house had to be around here somewhere. It was just a matter of figuring out where she was and how far from her position she had to run to get there.

A sudden pain flared up her leg. Feeling herself slow down, she warranted a glance at where the pain was coming from. There was a small pool of blood soaking through the black pair of pants she was wearing. Since the pain wasn't too severe, she knew that the bullet must have grazed her leg and not actually entered it.

Small blessing, though it was, Sydney knew that the wound would be enough to prevent her from escaping these men. But she wasn't about to give up trying.

The sounds of her feet hitting the pavement were now completely uneven, and each was being spaced out more and more. She could feel herself gradually slowing.

Sydney felt her head begin to get a little woozy. This distracted her just enough that she didn't see someone step out from the shadows. He grabbed her from behind and placed his hand over her mouth all the while desperately whispering for her not to scream.

She immediately recognized the voice which really tempted her to scream. Thinking logically, she chose not to give in to temptation. She would rather chance being alone with him, rather than being chased by five extremely capable henchmen.

He pulled her into a nearby open doorway and took his hand away from her mouth. Sydney turned around and peaked out a small crack in the now shut door. The five men who had been chasing her ran past screaming to one another that she had to be just around the corner.

"What the hell are you doing, Sark?" she hissed, turning her attention back to the man who had grabbed her.

"Saving your ass is what it looks like, Agent Bristow. You can thank me later." Sark took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and held it up to the light. "No service."

"Of course there's no service. We're in the middle of the slums outside Rio de Janeiro. Moron," she muttered. Sydney knew that she wouldn't get Sark to come straight out and explain, but she knew she had to keep trying. "Why did you help me?"

"Now, now. Do you really think I'm going to tell you how saving you benefits me just because you demanded it? I really thought we were beyond the playing dumb stage. I thought that you knew me better than that, Agent Bristow."

She sighed and went to open the door. It didn't move an inch. "The door's stuck."

"Either that or you really enjoy my company." Sark scanned the room and found a small trap door in one corner of the room. He pointed at it. "Here's our exit."

Sydney crossed the room and prepared to open the trap door. The door was so heavy that she knew she would have to ask Sark for help in lifting it. Before she could turn to humble herself and do just that, she felt a hand grasp her forearm.

Reacting instead of thinking, she punched Sark with the arm he had not been grasping. It was so unexpected that Sark didn't even have time to block the blow. He fell backwards onto the floor and grabbed the side of his face she had made contact with.

"What the hell was that for?" he grumbled. "I save your bloody life and all you can do is punch me. And I never got a thank you." He paused for a moment to look at her with his good eye. She was sitting on the ground glaring at him. "Obviously, I'm not going to get an apology from you either. Figures."

Sark stood up and walked to where Sydney was sitting. "Don't punch me again," he said as he bent down. With one large pull, he yanked the trap door open. "Get in," he demanded.

"Oh no," she said waving her hands. "I'm not going in there unless you go in first. I'm not stupid. I know that this whole thing could be a set up, Sark. It's quite convenient that you were in just the right place to save me from those men."

"Agent Bristow, I am not going in there first. It's imperative that you get in there now before those men come back looking for you."

She shook her head in the negative.

Sark grabbed her arm again, prepared to shove her in the right direction.

"You should have learned not to do that by now," Sydney whispered as he pulled her towards the door. "How many times do I have to kick your ass before you learn that you can't manhandle me?"

With all her might, she shoved him into the large hole the trapdoor had been covering. In her head, it seemed like a good idea. But in her head, she had forgotten the fact that he had a tight grip on her arm. As he tumbled into the black hole, she found herself tumbling right along beside him.

She felt Sark wrap his arms around her tightly and turn their bodies so that she was on top of him. When they hit the ground, he absorbed most of the blow. Sydney shrugged out of his arms which wasn't hard since he was pretty much incoherent from the impact. That was when she realized they had landed in a massive puddle. Wiping the water off of her face, she sighed.

"Guess I'll look around," she mumbled as she watched his eyes shut slowly. She felt her way around the walls in a complete circle. As far as she could tell there were shelves lining three of the walls and the other one was a complete smooth surface. She couldn't find any doors or openings.

Determined to keep moving, she felt each shelf trying to find anything that was useful. Most shelves were completely empty. But she did find a few cans of what she could only guess were food. On one of the last few shelves she checked, she hit a jackpot. She found an old kerosene lamp that she promptly lit with the matches she carried with her on every mission.

Looking around, she realized that Sark had been completely wrong about this exit. There was no exit. She had pushed him into what she could only estimate was an underground pantry that hadn't been used in years. There was no ladder or any other method of escape. They were thoroughly and utterly trapped.

Sighing, she walked her way over to where she heard Sark mumbling in pain. She sat down next to him and put her head in her hands.

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

The first words Sark heard when he regained consciousness were "We're stuck."

"What do you mean we're stuck?" he said, wincing as he tried to sit up. He felt Sydney's arms wrap around him and help him to his feet. "What happened?"

"In a nutshell, I pushed you down a hole. You took me with you. You got knocked unconscious. I did some investigating. Realized we were trapped. And then you woke up. Understand?"

"I think so." Sark rubbed his face. "How do we get out?"

"We don't. Like I said, we're stuck. I thought you said you understood."

"I thought I did. But excuse me if saving your ass for a second time in the past hour has made me a little incoherent."

Sydney glared at him. "There are no exits. No ladder to climb out. The opening is too far to reach without any equipment. My radio headpiece was destroyed long before those men started to chase me. Your cell phone took a beating in the fall. We have no way of contacting the outside world to tell them we're here. So, like I said, we're stuck."

"Any other bad news?" Sark asked her.

"Yeah. I'm freezing." Sark laughed. "Find that funny do you?"

"Yeah, I do, Agent Bristow." Sark continued to laugh until he saw that Sydney was shivering. "You're serious, aren't you? You really are freezing."

"As much as it pains me to reveal my weakness, yes, when I said I was freezing, I meant I was freezing, Sark."

He sighed and sat down next to her. Hoping she wouldn't react violently, he slipped his own arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

Through chattering teeth, she sputtered out, "If I wasn't so damn cold, I would kill you right about now."

"I know. That's the only reason I chanced it."

Sydney let out a small sigh as she felt her body warm up slightly from the heat Sark was emitting. "How long do you think it will take someone to find us?"

"Not that long if your precious Agent Vaughn is on the case."

"He's not mine, Sark," she said softly, almost to herself. "He never really was."

"You're not going to get emotional on me. Are you?"

Forgetting there was a reason she was cuddled up next to him, she shrugged out of his arms and stood up. "I forgot. Emotions aren't allowed when you're around."

"They mess things up. Cloud your judgment and the like."

"And that would just be horrible. To actually feel something." Sydney started shivering again.

"Why don't you stop trying to fix me and just sit down again?" he suggested.

"Bite me," she said.

"In the back of your pretty little head, I bet you wish I would," he said looking at her with a cocky grin.

She glared at him. "Maybe you're the one that wishes you could. I mean, I do seem to be the only woman who can keep up with you."

"And I applaud you for that. But you're not my type, Agent Bristow. I like my women with…" he paused and looked her up and down. "More flexible loyalties."

She raised her eyebrow at him. "Really? Then, you don't really know me, Sark. I thought that by now you would have gotten a handle on me, but obviously, you're not as good as I thought you were." She sauntered over and sat down next to him again.

"So, you've thought about me?" he teased.

"No," she answered simply. "Not even once."

"Come on, Agent Bristow. You haven't let your mind wonder just once what it would be like to actually let yourself go. You've never thought what it would be like to live my kind of life for just one day. Never questioned how great it could be if you were with someone who actually knew how a woman should be appreciated." He paused to smile. "I do know you, Sydney."

"Oh, it's Sydney now?" She said in mock surprise.

"I thought it was only fitting that I drop the Agent Bristow. I mean, we are stuck in a rather nasty, dank cellar with one another. I say by the time we get out of this, we'll be on a first name basis."

"That would require you telling me your first name." Sark just smiled at her without answering. She continued, "And to answer your question, no, I have never daydreamed about being with you, Sark."

"You're lying." He touched the outside corner of her right eye. "When you lie, that corner crinkles just slightly. It's a dead give away."

"Maybe you know me a little better than I thought," she admitted. It was starting to make her nervous that he hadn't taken his fingers off of her face. She was also scared at how much she wanted to lean into his hand.

"Humor me, Sydney. Tell me you thought about sleeping with me."

"You're such an arrogant asshole," she said leaping up onto her feet again, effectively breaking the connection that he had hastily formed with her. "You think that every woman on this earth worships you. Well, this one doesn't!"

"Calm down, Agent Bristow."

"Back to Agent Bristow?" she snarled.

"You're scaring me. I figured it was safer to call you that." He said with wide eyes.

"Good. I'm glad you're scared. Because you have ever reason to be afraid of me."

Sark realized that he was letting her get the upper hand in the conversation. "No. You misunderstood me. I'm getting scared because you seem a little too emotionally involved in this conversation. Dare I say that you actually have feelings about me outside of the daydreams?"

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"Which part? The outside feelings or the daydreams?"

"Both. I have no feelings for you at all. Hell, I have no feelings for men in general. I'm done with that. I've realized that your method is the way to go." She stood up straight and proud. "I plan on becoming an emotionless shell like you are."

Sark stood up and walked toward her. "That hurts." He stopped a few feet away from her.

"So you have feelings?" she asked. She had begun to get a small tingling feeling in her stomach. This only happened when she knew she was about to do something stupid. She took a small step toward him.

"Maybe I do, Agent Bristow." Sark cut the gap between them in half.

"And I never had daydreams about you," she added in a completely unconvincing tone as he inched closer.

"Of course," he said as he shook his head patronizingly.

"This is a mistake," she whispered as she felt herself step close enough to touch him. Looking into his eyes, she was scared of what she saw. She had been wrong about him. He wasn't an emotionless shell. He was pure emotion.

"I'm aware," he murmured as he bent down to kiss her softly.

As she felt his lips touch hers tentatively, Sydney heard a loud crash from above them. Sark sighed and pulled away. "Just when I was making headway," he said with a cocky grin.

She scowled at him.

"Do you think that's my men or your precious CIA handler?"

Sydney punched him in the jaw. "Leave Vaughn out of this. That's the last time I'm going to tell you that."

Sark rubbed his jaw. "Glad to see you're back to your old self, Agent Bristow. For a second there, I thought you were seducible."

She crouched down to where he was laying on the floor. "Would you just love to think you could affect me? If I didn't know better, I'd say that you really wanted me to want you." She sighed and stood up.

"You look pretty relaxed," he said as he picked himself up.

"Why shouldn't I be? Either the CIA is going to come in and rescue me while taking you into custody. Or your men are going to come in and you, rather smartly, are going to let me go. You obviously don't want me being held in anyone's custody or you wouldn't have saved me out there."

"You forgot the third option," Sark said smugly as he withdrew his gun from the pocket of his jacket which he had discarded earlier. "That could be the men who were chasing you earlier."

"Oh," Sydney said, realizing he had a point.

"Sydney?" called a voice from above.

She sighed in relief. "I'm down here, Weiss."

"We'll have you out as soon as we can locate some rope."

Sydney yelled thanks as she heard the men above her start scrambling.

"Who is this Weiss character?" Sark asked from the shadows he was hiding in.

"Keep your voice down," she hissed. "Weiss is one of the few people I still trust, if you must know. He'll get me out of here no matter what. However, he won't take too kindly to seeing you with me. So, just keep quiet. You're going to have to trust me."

"I already do, Agent Bristow. You might think I'm lying, but you are one of the few people I do trust."

"You're right," she said as she passed her hand over the wall to search for footholds. "I do think you're lying."

"You've never done me wrong. You've never acted out of character. Sydney, you're the only honest person I know. So that makes me trust you. Not with my life or safety, but there is some trust there all the same."

"Load of bullshit," she muttered as she heard Weiss return.

"Here's some rope. Try to pull yourself up!" he yelled.

"Got it," she shouted back. Turning to Sark, she whispered, "Just stay quiet. And since you claim you trust me, you should have no problem doing whatever I want you to."

Sydney began to pull herself up the rope. It was hard work since the walls were incredibly damp and slippery, but she made it to the top in relatively fast time. When he caught sight of her, Weiss grabbed her arms and pulled her the last few feet.

"How are you doing?" he asked, looking her over.

"Good, now that you've found me." She looked around. "Where is everyone else?"

"It's just me, Syd. Vaughn and Dixon thought that you were just following protocol and staying hidden until your scheduled pick-up time tomorrow."

"But you knew something was wrong when they didn't?" she asked.

"I had a hunch. Turns out I was right. Let's go," he said as she began to untie the rope he had fastened around the bars on one of the windows.

Sydney gently touched his hand. "Leave it. I want the men who were chasing me to know they had a chance to capture me, and they blew it." She smiled at him, hoping he didn't hear the lie in her voice. Not to mention the fact that she knew the corner of her right eye was crinkling exactly as Sark predicted it did when she didn't tell the truth.

Weiss nodded and led her out the door.

After hearing the two CIA agents leave, Sark waited a couple minutes and then gave the rope a rough tug. It was still tightly secured. "Hell of a woman," he muttered as he prepared to pull himself out.