Chapter Two

Jack Bristow was sleeping peacefully for the first time in weeks, which meant, of course, it couldn't last.

A surprising, guilty sort of relief had sprung from the fact that Sydney was securely confined in a safe house under constant observation. Morality told him he should be agonizing over the fact that he had been an instrument in Dixon's plan to hold his daughter against her will, but he couldn't be moved enough to let morality bother him. He was tired, strained, overwrought, and to be perfectly honest, plain glad to have at least one woman off his mind for the night.

It had been a pleasant enough evening, if strange in its idleness: he had the time and freedom of choice to sit down and enjoy dinner at his favorite restaurant, no calls had interrupted his viewing of the local news when he had settled himself into his comfy, old chair in the living room, and he had even had the inclination to pick up a book when the program was over. And when he had finally stretched out on his bed, he found his mind shockingly and delightfully blank. There were no problems or ideas or worries to chase each other around until the night had whittled itself away. Somehow, the world had fallen seamlessly into place, and for tonight everything made sense in an incomprehensible way. The matter of Sydney was resolved, and his mind dove into the fog of sleep before any more concerns could capture its attention.

The deafening ring of the phone near his ear jostled him upright long before any sunlight found his windowsill, and he reached automatically for it. With one half-formed sigh, he relinquished any hope of rest.

"Jack Bristow."

"Jack? It's me." Dixon's voice betrayed weariness, like he had just been roused from his bed too. There was uneasiness there, as well, that bordered on fear. Jack's feet hit the floor immediately, his hands already searching for the pants he had discarded a few hours before. "I--Jack, something…unexpected has come up at the safe house." Jack attempted to listen calmly while Dixon explained exactly what he meant, concentrating on keeping his hands steady on the buttons of his shirt, but he felt his heart was slamming a bit too violently against his rib cage.

"Impossible," he declared irrationally when it was his turn to speak. "There were four men outside that door and two at the entrance, not to mention two out on the street. To get past them, you would have had to have a fairly large team, or a fairly potent weapon. Either way, someone should have noticed and put out a distress call."

Dixon's patient answer threatened to steal all the strength from his knees, and he lowered himself with some dignity to sit heavily on the edge of the bed. "Oh. I see." His voice was detached from the rest of his body in its self-assured monotone, which lent it an eerie, disembodied echo. "She did it herself. From the inside."

Think, Bristow, he urged the dazed silence of his mind. What comes next? Shoes, he reminded himself. Then, Sydney.

"Have there been any sightings? Do we have any idea where she was headed?"

"She was just picked up about half an hour ago…wandering around the lot where her house used to be. One of the neighbors called the police on her." There was a pregnant pause on Dixon's end, hinting at something as yet undisclosed, but Jack didn't seek to fill it, instead using the time to switch the phone to the balance in the curve of his neck while he employed both hands in pulling on his socks. "Jack…she--she claims she doesn't remember anything of what happened. In the past few hours, I mean."

Fully dressed, Jack stood up, running his hands over his pockets to ensure everything was in place. Keys. Wallet. Good. "Call Kendall. Wallace, too, if you think we'll need him. Anybody you can think of. And tell her--tell Sydney that I'm on my way."

~~~~~~~~~~

Looming over the shoulder of the guard, Jack stared at the black and white video monitor. Sydney was slumped on the bare cot in the glass-walled holding cell, elbows on knees, chin fallen to her chest, hands limp and palm-upwards, the absolute picture of supplication and defeat.

If she really doesn't remember anything…

A dull ache lodged in the left side of his chest unconsciously drew his arm up to rub at the sore spot, and for a moment there seemed to be no room in his lungs for breath. When the moment passed though, he took stock of the position of his limbs and his temporary absence of self-control, and quickly shoved the offending hand back into his pocket.

A weakness, he decided, was a terrible thing to have. Especially when one wanted to keep that weakness as close as he did.

He nodded stiffly to the guard, and waited patiently for the door to open fully before passing through it into the hallway. On the other side of the glass, Sydney rose expectantly when she saw him, and the hope in her eyes shriveled his heart with knowledge that he had no good news to offer. After another wooden nod in the direction of the guard, the mechanical click of a lock alerted him to the fact that the door separating him from his daughter was now open. When he crossed the threshold into the opposite side, he was met with a warm body that melded into his own with sufficient force to stun him into taking three steps backwards. Hugs were still new to him.

"What's happening?" she begged him in a fierce whisper. He resisted the temptation to stroke her hair like he had when she was little.

"Sit down," he said gruffly enough to make him flinch with the awkwardness of it. She obeyed with the deliberate caution of a trapped animal, while her eyes repeated her question. He drew himself up to stand straight, making silent preparations for his speech. "I only know what I've been told, and I can't say any of it is particularly comforting. All the interviews that have been conducted so far agree that you faked an emergency around midnight last night. You lured your guards into opening the door and…overwhelmed them."

Her clenched jaw took on an ashen pallor. "How badly did I hurt them?"

"Sydney, what's important here--"

"It's important to me. What did I do?"

"It's not as bad as anything you're thinking. Mostly bumps and bruises. One with a broken ankle. Another is being treated for a minor concussion. The two out on the street are fine--they never even saw you leave.

"We can discuss the details of what happened later, but what I need to know now is what only you can tell me. What happened between your escape from the safe house and when the police picked you up this morning?" He slumped to sit beside her, occupying a surprisingly large portion of the dangerously undersized cot, and clinched her hand in his own. "You have to remember. It has to be in your mind somewhere."

She was already shaking her head before he finished speaking. "I've tried. There's nothing…it's just blank. I fell asleep on the couch, and then I was standing on a street with a flashlight shining in my eyes. I think I must be going crazy."

"You're not crazy," he protested. He pressed his shoulders against the solidity of the wall and fought the urge to close his eyes from sheer exhaustion and disappointment. "It's alright. We prepared for this. I have a few people waiting; they'll ask you some questions, do some tests, to try to help you recover the time you're missing."

"Dad, I can't."

"Don't worry. I'll be there almost the whole time. They won't do a thing to you without my permission." He climbed sharply to his feet, pulling her up after him. "We have to leave now, though. They're waiting."

He relinquished her hand in order to turn the handle on the door, but the pressure of her grip on his arm made him stop and turn to face her.

"Wait. Before I forget, what happened in San Paulo? Did Vaughn and Weiss find anything?"

He made a dismissive gesture and finished opening the door, guiding them both out into the hallway. "There was nothing in San Paulo. The building was completely deserted by the time they got there, cleaned out. Either it was a trap set for you, or someone on the inside tipped Sark off. I seriously doubt the former, since the Covenant wouldn't have gone to the trouble without the certainty that you would come yourself. As for the latter, the CIA is taking the necessary precautions as we speak.

"Weiss is flying home this afternoon, but Vaughn volunteered to stay with half the team for a few more days to ensure they're not missing something," he added, aware that she would want to know about both of the men.

"A mole in the agency?" she murmured, misgivings stirring in her imagination. "They don't think it's me, do they? I know everything seems pretty suspicious--attacking CIA agents, disappearing like I did--but I swear I haven't betrayed the CIA. Whatever happened, I know I didn't--couldn't do that."

"I believe you. But that's why I need you to speak with the people I asked here. To make sure that you will never be considered a suspect."

~~~~~~~~~~

As Sydney had averred, there was nothing to be found in her mind, despite the noble efforts of Jack's experts.

Weary in all aspects after another strenuous day, Sydney drug herself through the parking garage to the car she had been forced to abandon the morning of the day before. Inserting her key in the engine, she considered how, even with evidence otherwise, she was very lucky in some facets of her life. She should have never been released from CIA custody since they had been unable to discover any pardonable motivation behind her episode the previous night, but she attributed her discharge to the combined labors and influence of her father and Dixon.

The same two men she had been cursing yesterday, she was suddenly, exceedingly grateful for.

She noticed Weiss's kitchen light was on when she eased up her driveway, but she didn't have the energy to welcome him home, or to hear the particulars of San Paulo from his own lips. Company for her misery seemed unbearable in her surreal state.

She fumbled her way into her own kitchen, shedding clothing and excess items on the way. Opening the refrigerator, she reminded herself that she hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours, but nothing was remotely appetizing. Grabbing a beer, she nursed it while she rested her aching feet on the couch and attempted to sort through the haze of her situation. When the bottle was empty, she was no more relaxed than before, and her state of affairs was no clearer.

She stared longingly down the carpeted stretch to her bedroom and visualized the steps it would take to get there in her head, but ultimately the actual action escaped her. She set the bottle on the coffee table and curled around one of the pillows on the couch.

~~~~~~~~~~

Assassination was where all the jobs were.

Crouching on an open roof under a drenching downpour, Julia Thorne trained her sniper rifle on thin air and waited for her victim to enter the street for their appointed meeting outside the tiny restaurant below. On the exterior, she was composed, every muscle disciplined into stillness despite the icy damp, but on the inside she seethed.

The Covenant had expected her to blindly follow orders, given her a name and a face and instructed her to kill a man. Of course she had done her own background check on the man afterwards. He wasn't quite the malevolent nemesis that had been imprinted upon her, but her wasn't anyone redeemable either: a major dealer in the nuclear black market. A rival the Covenant needed destroyed.

And so here she was, in the pounding rain and the brutal wind, following orders. Just not blindly.

A black umbrella rounded the corner, followed by three drenched security personnel openly toting weapons. She lowered her belly to the ground, sliding closer to the edge to get a glimpse of the face cowering under the umbrella. He turned half-around to consult the man on his left at the obvious absence of their client, allowing her the perfect angle to identify his features. Right man.   

She wiped her slick hands uselessly against her dark pants and gripped the gun again, steadying her aim. She tightened her index finger on the trigger. Blood and rain splattered on the wet concrete.

As fire opened in the ground below her, she slithered back from the rim of the roof, quickly disassembling and repacking her rifle in its case. Brashly rising to stand at her full height, she caught sight of a barely discernable figure in the third-story window of the warehouse across the street. Her Covenant trail was half-concealed by the frame of the glass, watching to guarantee she completed her mission. She grinned spitefully at the anonymous spectator and raised a hand in salutation.

A bullet disturbed the air by her left ear and she dove to her right, escaping through the rooftop door back into the shelter of the building.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the first half-minute of wakefulness, Sydney Bristow couldn't dredge up any memory of where she was. Then she recognized the sheets as those of her own bed, and as she stretched her protesting body into a sitting position, she wondered at what point of the night she had discovered the power to haul herself to her room. The comfortable cotton of her pajama bottoms whispered against itself when she kicked back the covers.

She was only just setting her feet on the floor when the rust-colored spot at the end of her bed registered in the early-morning fog of her mind. It stretched nearly three feet long and one wide, soaked into the fabric of the carpet, and dried into stiffness. In the midst of it was a tangled pile of clothes splotched with the same substance. Her clothes.

The whole room smelled like blood. She stifled a silent scream in her palms as she backed herself against the headboard of her bed. It took another minute of knotted revulsion in her stomach before she devised a plan of action. Picking up the phone, she dialed the first number that she could remember.

When the concerned voice on the other end was finally cut off by the click of the receiver falling, she replaced the handset and brought her knees to her chest, hugging her elbows around them as she waited expectantly for the knock on the front door. Shock had reduced her to uncontrollable shakes, but the panic she had felt was internally receding to be replaced by one lucid thought: this was turning out to be one god-awful week.