Vaughn had been sitting at his desk in the CIA headquarters for over an hour, staring into space. He still couldn't comprehend the fact that Sydney, the image of perfection in his mind, could have done something so impetuous and thoughtless so willingly. A partnership with Sark was the last thing he expected Sydney to do.

Dixon saw Vaughn's blank look from across the floor and began to make his way over to the desk. "How are you holding up, Michael?"

"Not too well. I just can't believe Sydney would do something like this." He looked up at his boss. "I keep asking myself what could I have done to stop her from making this huge mistake."

"Don't go blaming yourself. This was no one's fault and everyone's fault. None of us really took in consideration what Sydney's wanted in the past few months. If I had, I would have known that a CIA free life isn't what she aspires for anymore."

"That dream died when she realized that her mother wasn't an English professor but a KGB spy."

"But I conveniently forgot that. So I let her go from the Agency. She had nowhere and no one to turn to." Dixon put his hand supportively on Vaughn's shoulder. "Enough of this. Did you tell Sydney how bad the situation is here?"

"No," he said as he pulled something up on his computer. "I didn't want to guilt trip her into coming back. If she knew the mess that Weiss has put us in, she would have given up anything. She likes to blame herself for things just as much as we do."

"Don't worry, Michael. I'm sure Sydney will come back to us someday. It might not be soon, but we'll be seeing her. She may be working for Sark, but she's still the Sydney we know and love inside. She would never do anything for him that would cause harm to people."

Vaughn looked at Dixon meaningfully. "I agree with that. But then I think about two days ago I would have said our Sydney would never have allied herself with a cocky bastard like Sark. However, there she is. Right by his side."

"Talking about Sydney again?" Lauren asked as she took a seat next to her husband. She placed her hand into his. "I haven't really had time to get to her know her, but I have a feeling that this whole situation is going to work out just fine."

"Thanks," Vaughn said with a weak smile.

"Why don't you two take the afternoon off?" Dixon suggested as he walked away.

"If I knew that a little of your moping was all it took to get time off, I would have made you do it sooner," Lauren joked. Seeing that it wasn't lightening her husband's mood, she tried another tactic. "Let's get out of her. This place is getting too chaotic with all the investigation into how far Weiss infiltrated our organization for the Covenant."

"I appreciate this," Vaughn said seriously as he stared into his wife's eyes intently. "I appreciate you trying to help me through this whole thing."

"Well, you've had a pretty rough few months." Lauren stood up and held her hand out to him. "Let's go forget about our crazy lives for an afternoon."

Vaughn smiled and took her hand. He would try, but he was pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to get the mental images of Sark and Sydney together to leave his mind any time soon. It was finally apparent that that woman was going to haunt his thoughts until the day he died.

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

"I always thought this was a nice place, Julian," Lina said as she took in Sark's home. "It's definitely better than the last one. You remember that shack you called a home in Dublin?"

"That was a very respectable place," Sark defended.

"Yeah, sure."

Sydney took the momentary lull in conversation to take her leave. "I'm going to go up to my room. I'm a little tired from the roller coast we call life."

Sark gave her a dismissive nod, and Lina waved trying to make up for his rudeness. As soon as Sydney was up the stairs and out of sight, she smacked him in the arm rather harshly.

"What the hell was that for?" he snarled.

"I thought you said she was your partner, and then you just treat her like shit most of the time. I mean, she says good night and you just glance at her briefly. I always knew you were a bastard to people who weren't me, but god, I didn't realize how bad it was."

"There are complications," he answered simply.

"Aren't there always complications when it comes to you?" Lina went into the room next to the foyer and sat down on a coach. She patted the seat next to her. As Sark sat down next to her, she continued, "Tell me about these complications."

"She thinks she's in love with me," Sark stated.

"You're right. You do have a problem." Sark smiled at his sister recognizing that he may have finally found someone who understood his point of view on this topic. The smile was wiped off his face as she continued. "Your partner is crazy. How the hell can she be in love with a person like you? You don't give anyone anything to love. The only thing you have going for you is that whole mysterious angle. And, take it from me, that can get old quick."

Sark scowled at her. "I should have left you with that rat Cummings."

Lina grabbed his hand in hers. "Now, don't start getting mean with me. I was just saying that I couldn't understand why Sydney would think she's falling in love with you. Honestly, you treat her like dirt most of the time."

"She agrees with that. She yelled at me about that very point a few days ago."

"So why does she keep coming back for more?"

"Sydney has a very complicated history. There are a lot of reasons."

"Could you explain some of them, maybe?"

"Her last three boyfriends have been murdered by her boss, murdered by her hand, and married to another woman for a year now. In that order."

"What does that have to do with you?"

"She's been hurt a lot. I figure that she isn't really seeing straight on issues that deal with her heart."

Lina smiled and squeezed his hand. "Listen. I'm going to go upstairs and settle in. Is the Blue Room open for me?"

"Yes," Sark said suspicious of her. "Why do you want to stay in the Blue Room? You always stay in the bedroom across the hall from mine when you're here. Why the sudden change?"

"Because I have a feeling I know which room you put your new partner in. And, well, the Blue Room's right next to it. I want to get to know this Sydney Bristow a little more. It seems like she may have actually made a little dent in that suit of armor you wear."

"She didn't," Sark yelled as he watched his sister go up the stairs.

"Like you believe that!"

"She didn't," he mumbled to himself.

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

Sydney was settled into her room for about ten minutes before she was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. "Come in!" she called from her bed.

"Hi, Sydney," Lina said as she entered the room. Sydney noticed that her British accent had slightly thinned out a little and rationalized it by thinking Lina must be relaxing since she's in a familiar and comfortable surrounding. "I hope you don't mind the intrusion. I wanted to talk with you a bit."

"What do you want to know?"

"Nothing serious. I want to know a little more about Julian's new partner. Is that okay?"

"Ask anything you want. I'm an open book." As an afterthought, she added, "Except if it deals with US national security. I can't divulge that stuff."

"I promise I won't ask." She made a cross sign over her heart. "So, you used to be an agent for the CIA?"

"The best agent if I do say so myself. I helped take down SD-6 by being one of two double agents working for both organizations. The other one was my father. My mother is Irina Derevko, Sark's old boss. Or maybe she's still his boss. I can never figure out where his true loyalties lie."

"First lesson about Julian, he doesn't have loyalties. He has leanings but no loyalties."

"That sounds promising for our partnership."

"Oh, he's trustworthy, don't get me wrong. It's just he doesn't really like to form attachments. The last time he did, he got burned pretty hard."

"Oh. Sark actually let himself get hurt, did he?"

"Yes." Lina sighed. "By me. But that's another story. This is about you. So, what does your boyfriend think about this whole thing?"

"I don't have a boyfriend. The last one I had got married when he thought I had died."

"Yeah, Julian told me that. But I didn't want to just bust out with that."

Sydney smiled at her softly. "Thanks for that. Michael Vaughn was my handler at the CIA. We fell in love. I thought he was the one. He wasn't. It's as simple as that."

"You sound just as closed off as your partner," Lina pointed out.

"He always told me things are a lot less messy that way. I think I'm starting to agree with that point."

"But the current state of affairs is far from messy, isn't it?"

"What are you talking about?"


"I shouldn't have said that," Lina said, grimacing. Taking a deep breath, she tried her best to iron out the anger she knew Sydney was about to develop. "Julian and I have been best friends for practically all of our life. It gets hard for us to remember that some things should be kept to ourselves. He told me that you think you're in love with him. I, personally, think you're crazy. But to each his own."

"He told you that I love him?" Sydney said.

Lina nodded hesitantly as she saw Sydney begin to get mad. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you that. Please don't kill Julian. It was my fault."

"Did he tell you what he said to me?"

Lina shook her head no.

"He said that he could probably never fall in love with me. That he wasn't capable of love. Sometimes he's so damn cold and mean."

"That's about right. So why do you keep thinking you're in love with him?"

"Well, there's these moments where he's… just… not. He's not mean or rude. It's like he's a different person sometimes."

"Tell me," Lina said. She sat down on the bed next to Sydney.

"Well, for starters, when I got shot on the beach in Nice, he didn't leave me for dead. I still can't figure out why he didn't leave me. He had no reason to save me, but yet he did."

"Julian might not admit it. But he does care for you. It might not be love, but it's something. Even I can tell that. So, there has to be more moments than that one."

"When I told him I thought I loved him, I got him to agree to date me for the last week I was with him here in London. I know it sounds crazy, but I just wanted to see if my feelings for him were real or if they were based on the situations we put ourselves in."

"And were they?"

"No. Not at all." Sydney smiled to herself. "It's not like there's any big, life-altering moment with him. It's just all these little moments, a minute here, an hour there, where it seems like he really understands me and it's just comfortable between us."

"God, you are in love, aren't you?"

"I can't help it."


"Tell me more. I want to know."

"I think it will make you uncomfortable."

"I want to know," Lina insisted.

"Well, he was there for me when I found out that the last friend I had back in Los Angeles was actually working for the enemy I was fighting. He understood how much it hurt and he took such pains to keep me distracted after I found out. And then, there was the strangest moment of all." Sydney paused and looked at Lina, hesitant to continue.

"Go on. Please."

"Well, I finally got Sark to admit that he didn't love me but he was attracted to me. He actually told me that he wanted me and had for a long time. It was progress, and I screwed it up."

"How so?"

"I tried to seduce him into sleeping with me."

"Nice!" Lina said, wiggling her eyebrows.

"It didn't happen," Sydney said with a chuckle. "I scared him off."

"You scared him off? I would have thought it would be the other way around. Julian can be a little too intense sometimes. Which is why it's hard for him to let his emotions out."

"Interesting to know."

"What did you do to scare him off?"

"I tried to be the woman I thought he wanted. I was wrong. He pushed me aside and told me that."

"So how could this make you love him more? I mean, rejection is never easy to take. And with the battle scars he told me you had in the area of love, I would imagine it would hurt twice as much."

"It did hurt twice as much. But instead of scolding me and leaving the room, he stayed. I asked him to stay, told him I need to stay. And he did. That little action contradicted everything I thought I knew."

"Wow," Lina said. "He's done a number on you."

"It's like I'm living with two different men." Sydney looked at the woman she had just met less than twenty-four hours earlier. "I can't believe I'm about to tell you this, what with you being who you are. But I think that I've gotten in deeper than before."

"How so?"

"I think I've fallen in love with both sides of him. The side that is so uncharacteristically sweet and nice to me. And the complete bastard in him." Lina grinned from ear to ear. "What?"

She patted Sydney on the leg and stood up for the bed. "I think you might actually be the one to crack his shell. No one has ever loved the bastard in him."

"Very funny," Sydney called as Lina laughed her way out of the room.

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

Sydney had quickly realized that the talk she had with Lina was very similar to the way she used to talk with Francie. It was very nice to have that kind of relaxed, comfortable kind of vibe in her life again. Which is why it was no wonder that she slipped right back into the carefree kind of behavior she had back when she was just an agent of SD-6 and Will and Francie thought she worked in a bank.

Dancing around the room to the radio had always been one of her favorite normal activities to partake in with her friends. It felt good to be doing it again.

Sark knocked softly at her door. When there was no answer, he let himself in and had to try hard not to burst out laughing. It wasn't everyday he saw the cool Agent Bristow dancing on her bed in a tank top and shorts and singing into a hairbrush microphone.

"I can fully appreciate 'Like a Prayer' now that I have seemed it performed properly," Sark yelled over the music.

Sydney shrieked and fell into a lump onto the bed. After a second to recover, she ran over to her dresser and turned the radio off. "What the hell were you thinking, sneaking up on me like that?"

"I knocked," he said with a smirk. "How was your little chat with Lina?"

"How did you know I talked with her? Were you spying on us?" Sydney's heart almost stopped at the thought that Sark had heard all the things she had said about him.

"No. I just knew that she would be in her to talk with you almost immediately when she insisted that she have the room next to yours. She's an extremely nosy person, I'm afraid."

"It's okay. She reminds me of Francie."

Sark nodded and sat on the edge of her dresser. "So what did you talk about?"

"You," Sydney said as she lightly bumped him with her hip.

"And what did you say about me?"

"A good majority of the conversation was focused on the fact that you were a complete bastard and probably aren't worthy of life."

"That's the kind of talk that warms my heart."

Sydney's heart began to beat fast at the smile he sent her way. She still couldn't figure out how he managed to have this effect on her. Unable to help herself, she leaned over to him and whispered in his ear, "We're wasting time."

Sark was about to ask her what she meant when he felt the soft pressure of her lips on his. He tried his best not to kiss her back, but he had slowly come to the realization that this was next to impossible. Sydney appreciated this new development as she felt his arms wrap around her. It seems she had been right about the progress she was making.

However, her triumph didn't last too long. When he realized what she had tricked him into doing, he pushed her away gently. "I thought we talked about this, Sydney. No romance in our partnership."

"I never agreed to that," she said with a sly smile. She walked over and sat on the bed to put distance between herself and Sark. If she stayed close to him, she was pretty sure she'd end up kissing him once more. "So what did you want to talk to me about?"

"You're trying to keep me from giving you another lecture about how we can't get involved."

"I don't need to hear you say it again," Sydney said. "Besides, things are a lot more complicated now."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, with Lina here."

"True. That little devil always makes my life twice as complicated than it is when she's not around. But I love her for it."

"See. That's the complication right there." Sark looked at her in confusion. "When we were talking about you, she told me that she had hurt you pretty bad in the past. I assume that there's some unresolved business between you two. You're going to want to work that out, and I'm just in your way."

"You aren't really making any sense, Sydney," Sark said for he was still utterly confused.

"Well, I don't have all the information about your relationship with her," Sydney said with a hint of anger in her voice. This conversation really wasn't easy for her to begin with, and Sark was just making it that much harder.

"And that's my fault," he said as he finally realized what she was thinking. "I kept a few key details about m y relationship with Lina secret. And I'm going to apologize for that in advance. You see, I was afraid if I told you who Lina really was it might somehow put her in danger. I know that sounds crazy."

"And a little bit mean and hurtful." She cursed silently as she felt her eyes well up with tears. She had just started to think this situation was working out and then he had to go and withhold information from her.

"Don't cry," Sark said walking over to the bed and sitting down next to her. He grabbed her hand. "You know I can't take it when you cry."

"I'm trying not to. But I had just started to trust you and then you had to go and bring an ex-girlfriend into the mix."

Sark wiped the tears from underneath her eyes. "Sydney, she's my sister."

She looked at him in shock. "Lina is your… sister…"

"Yes, she's my little sister. I thought that keeping that information from you would protect both of you. If you got captured, you wouldn't have to worry about knowing the one weakness I have. And she thought you already knew then she would be more willing to open up. My sister is just like me. She likes to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself, all bottled up inside. I thought you might be good for her. I mean, you've already made me confess things that I never thought I would be telling anyone."

"So your sister is your Achilles' Heel?"


Sark chuckled. "Yes, she is. I've spent my whole life trying to keep her safe and away from the life that my father sucked me into. I never wanted her to get wrapped up in this spy world. When she said she hurt me greatly, she was talking about the day she joined the Covenant."

"Which is why you have been so adamant about destroying it."

"Now don't go thinking that I'm not still the same man you hate with everything you are. I'm not trying to tell you that everything I've done is for the good of my sister. I've done some pretty horrible things that had no good reasoning behind them."

Sydney squeezed his hand and leaned her head on his shoulder. "Good. Because I was starting to get worried about you."

"Anyway, enough with that. I came here to tell you that I have a mission planned out for us tomorrow."

"So soon?" Sydney mumbled.

"It should be simple. You and I are going to go into a Covenant facility and just tamper with a few of their computer files. There's eight hundred million dollars that I'd really appreciate being returned."

Sydney stood up and walked with Sark to the door. "I'm glad you told me about your sister."

"Me, too," he admitted from the hallway. "By the way, what did you mean before about wasting time?"

"Life's short. We both know that. I just think we shouldn't be wasting time dancing around what we have together. I've been hurt a lot in the past, and I know that should probably make me hesitant to jump back into a relationship. But I can't deny that I'm really, truly in love with you. That's what I was telling your sister. That I love the man who sits on a bed with me and wipes away my tears." She smiled at him. "And I'm really starting to love the man who is ruthless in getting what he wants."

Sark nodded and began to walk down the hall, calling over his shoulder, "Be ready to board the plane at nine tomorrow morning, Sydney!"

She sighed and shut the door on this current chapter of the emotional roller coaster of her life.