LOS ANGELES, EL GATSBY APARTMENTS, 4:23PM

Sydney Bristow stepped into her old apartment clutching the letter she's just received in her left hand. She almost felt excited as she remembered the contents of the letter.

Dear student,
As you well know, you were among Madison High School's graduating class of 1996. It is now the year 2006, ten years later, and Madison High is holding a ten year reunion for the class of 96. No one is obligated to attend, but if you do attend, we ask that you follow this dress code:
Casual wear is NOT permitted.
Dress FORMALLY.
That means black ties, boys.

Sincerely,
Dr. Sandra P. Scott
School Counselor

Sydney smiled and she stepped over a piece of shattered glass. She remembered Francie Calfo, her late best friend, acting as if she'd just been tortured to death after a conversation with Dr. Scott.

"She wanted to know how I felt about racism," Francie had told Sydney. Francie herself was an African American, and Dr. Scott was an all white American gringo, as a Cuban would put it.

"What did you tell her?" Sydney had asked.

"I told her all white people should burn in hell. I think she's a Jew because she just smiled a whole lot. The creep."

Sydney noticed the ruins of her old coffee table which had been destroyed during a fight with Allison Doren. Sydney had won, of course.

There was a wooden picture frame lying between small pieces of broken wood. The glass was half broken and the frame held a picture of her son of a bitch terrorist mother whom she wished was dead. A different picture caught Sydney's attention. It lay in a silver frame, the glass covering it was cracked but Sydney could see the photograph clearly. It was one taken by her deceased fiancé, Danny Hecht. In the picture, Sydney was sitting on a blue beach towel, her toes wriggling in the sand and she was laughing with her two best friends Francie Calfo and Will Tippin.

But everyone in that picture was dead, her friends, her fiancé, even herself…she might as well be, right? Sydney let her mind go to a place she'd vowed never to go again. She allowed herself to remember that dreaded moment at the Micro Tech warehouse.

MICRO TECH WARE HOUSE, ONE YEAR AGO

Sydney had sat in that warehouse many times before, but something made this time different. It wasn't her…no, it wasn't her at all. It was the people around her, the way her father hadn't even tried to make eye contact with her, the way Director Kendall looked at her. Then came a beefy man with graying hair in a blue suit.

"Hello Agent Bristow," he said in a German accent. They exchange glances and shook hands, Sydney trying as hard as she could not to notice the cold stares of the people around her. They were staring at the man in front of her, which told her he could only mean bad news. "I am Alejandrio Alzuri: FBI."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Alzuri," Sydney forced herself to smile. "I don't mean to be rude, but why am I here?"

"You will know soon enough," said Alejandrio. "Now follow me." Sydney did so and in a matter of seconds they had both disappeared into the darkness of the warehouse. Jack Bristow stared off into that darkness, unaware of anything else around him.

He felt disgusted with himself. His own daughter would soon be feeling the worst pain imaginable, the kind that came with the loss of a loved one, and he couldn't tell her the truth.

He couldn't tell her that what she was now being told…he couldn't tell her that Francie and Will were really alive even as she was being told the opposite. He couldn't tell her the truth and that hurt more than if he'd lost his own mother. Because it felt as if he was losing his daughter…to darkness.

Jack had lied to the people he loved many times before. Even to his beloved Laura whom he would have given anything to keep, despite the fact that she was, in truth, a murderous, blood sucking terrorist who thought of no one but herself. But he had been able to lie to Laura. And to everyone else he had to. But lying to Sydney was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, harder than losing Laura----scratch that---Irina. Lying to Sydney meant lying to the one thing in his life that made him sane. In truth, Sydney was his life. Jack would rather help Arvin Sloane destroy the planet than to lie to his daughter, but he had no choice…right? Wrong. He could have easily helped Arvin Sloane bring an end to the world, but he was a man of morals, of principals, and he respected himself enough to know that he'd never help Sloane.

Jack was so caught up in his painful thoughts that he almost didn't notice it when Sydney burst into the light with her face ion her hands. He, Jack, tried to say something of comfort, however uncharacteristic of him it might be, but Sydney ran out of the warehouse before he could say a word.