A mission to Cancun sounded like the best remedy to Sydney's fatigue problem. She couldn't thank her father enough for pulling some strings to get her and Vaughn assigned to this completely easy, bordering on luxurious mission. The only problem was the plane ride.
Her father had gone all out and got them a pair of aliases as a new money couple who's jet setting all over the world. That meant they were flying in the nicest jet imaginable. Under normal circumstances, this would be great.
However, at this very moment, the combination of the soft whirr of the engines and the light up and down bobbing of the jet was slowly lulling her to sleep. Sleep was the last place she wanted to be. The dreams hadn't returned since the first two, but it seemed she lived in a constant fear. They were so unsettling.
"Don't fight it, Syd," she heard Vaughn whisper. He was sitting across from her on the plan, reading the lasted New York bestseller. "You're tired, so go to sleep. Nothing's going to happen. I promise."
She almost laughed. The only way he could keep that promise was if he made sure she didn't dream at all when she fell asleep. Too tired to argue, though, she shut her eyes.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Sydney was almost relieved when she found herself back in the white hallway. The fact that she hadn't come back to this place in over a week was both eased her fears and made them greater. The doors that were on opposite parts of the hall were now side by side.
Standing in front of the black one, Sydney gently rested her hand on it. She wasn't sure which door she was supposed to enter this time and was hoping that touching them would give her a sign. The door was hot to the touch. It reminded her of the way her car felt after it had been sitting out in the sun for a whole day.
Moving on, she walked to the second door. The blue one still had a Celtic symbol on it. She traced the wood burns with her fingers. Nothing happened. Nothing came to her.
Sighing, she pushed the blue door open and walked through the threshold, welcoming the familiar jolt.
She found herself standing in a pile of hay in a barn. Seeing herself in a broken piece of mirror that was hung on the wall, she gasped. Her hair was suddenly pulled back from her head, and she was in a green dress that came down to her knees. She was carrying a tray of medical supplies.
"Genevieve, what are you doing standing around?" screamed a voice from one of the horse stalls.
Sydney felt herself begin to run towards the sound of the voice. There was another woman in the barn with her who was stocking up medical supplies and organizing them into the stall.
"The men are going to be arriving soon. We need to get ready."
"Yes, Samantha," she heard her voice timidly say.
Inside, she felt a large amount of frustration. Focusing, she tried to get specifics on where and who she was.
She was in France during World War II. She wasn't French but rather an English woman helping take care of some of the wounded. Help was scarce, and she was hoping to catch a glimpse of her brother, who had joined up a couple years ago. They hadn't heard from him in six months.
The frustration came from the fact that their assignment wasn't going to be carried out the way she thought. She had expected to get a few English soldiers who had minor injuries and needed a little rehabilitation before they were thrown back on the front. Instead, the United States army was bringing in a few German prisoners of war who needed a little medical attention.
Sydney sighed and rushed back out to the truck the army had brought them full of supplies a few hours earlier. She loaded up her empty tray again and turned to race back to the barn. Making the turn around the side of the barn, she ran right into a wall.
The wall turned out to be a man, she realized as she looked up at his face. She couldn't make out much because the sun was shining straight into her eyes.
"Pardon me, Fraulein. I seem to have lost my way."
Sydney grabbed the offered hand and pulled herself up. Wiping off the front of her dress, she muttered, "I know this whole thing wouldn't be a pleasant experience when I heard it was German soldiers we would be receiving, but this is just bloody ridiculous. I mean, can't you see where you're go--"
Her voice got caught in her throat as she saw the face of Michael Vaughn on the body of this German soldier she knew she should hate. In the back of her head, she heard a voice whispering something about how handsome the man was.
"I'm sorry. It was rude of me to sneak up on you," Vaughn said. "I apologize. My name is Lukas Klein. I was supposed to find someone named Genevieve Law to tell her that Samantha needs more morphine."
"Well, you found her." Sydney began walking. She felt Vaughn hobble along trying his best to keep up with her. "You're limping. Are you hurt?"
"Just some ricocheted shrapnel in my leg. I'll be fine. Thank you for your concern, Fraulein."
"Call me Genevieve, and I'm not concerned for you. All I'm concerned about is keeping this job long enough to find my brother." Sydney tried with all her might to open the barn door, but it seemed to be stuck.
"You shouldn't worry so much." Vaughn stepped forward and hefted the door open with one mighty tug.
"The worry keeps me alive."
Sydney felt a sudden whirr in her body. She was no longer in a barn. She was standing in a meadow filled with wild flowers. Looking down, she saw a note in her hand. It pleaded with her to come to the meadow at noon. She looked up and saw that the sun was about to set. Looks like Genevieve was late for her meeting.
"I thought you weren't going to come."
Sydney spun around to see Vaughn, or rather Lukas, leaning up against a tree. He was no longer in his German army uniform but a simple white shirt and pants and a farmer's hat. She felt herself silently smiling at the way he looked so comfortable in this setting.
"I didn't want to come," she heard herself respond. "Samantha would kill me if she found out I was stealing away to meet with one of our prisoners."
"I'm happy you did," Vaughn said as he stood up and walked toward her. Sydney noticed that he wasn't limping as much. The whirring in her body must have symbolized the passage of time. It seemed like Genevieve Law had spent the time skipped over getting to know Lukas Klein a little better.
Sydney knew that she shouldn't be letting this dream take her in so much, but she was a hopeless romantic at heart and could recognize true love when she saw it. Or maybe she was just projecting her feelings for Vaughn on her dreams again.
"What do you want, Lukas?"
"I wanted to give you this." He held out a parcel for her to take.
She took the parcel from him and ripped it open. Inside was the book "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn". She looked up at him in surprise.
"You mentioned to me a few days ago that you had heard how great this book was and how much you wanted to read it. I traded a carton of cigarettes and my Luger to an American soldier passing through your medical camp the other day for it."
Sydney could feel her eyes tear up. She knew in her heart that no man had ever made such a selfish gesture for Genevieve before. "Thank you," she managed to choke out before she started crying. Her body gave out, and she crumpled into a heap on the ground.
Vaughn immediately sat down beside her and started apologizing profusely. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it would upset you so much. You don't have to take it."
Sydney looked up at this German soldier and almost started crying again. That famous worry face she had always seen on Vaughn's face when he was talking business with her was on Lukas Klein's face. Before she realized what she was doing, she had reached out and pulled his face close to hers. Her lips gently brushed his, barely making contact.
"It's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me," she whispered looking into his eyes.
"You shouldn't do that," he answered, referring to their almost kiss. "You could be labeled a traitor for fraternizing with me." He stood up. "I'm not good for you. I was wrong to try to get you to talk with me."
"Don't go," she heard herself whisper as she watched him walk off into the setting sun.
Vaughn turned to look back at her. With a small tip of his hat, he was gone.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
"Sydney," Vaughn whispered, shaking her gently. She woke up and looked at him in confusion. "We've landed in Cancun. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, never been better." She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. Vaughn handed her the bag she had beside her and held out his hand to help her up out of her seat. Her heart skipped a beat as she made a parallel between this moment and the moment where Lukas first met Genevieve.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Vaughn asked, noticing the starry eyed, far off look that was on her face.
"I promise I am," Sydney said as she grasped his hand and stood up.
They got the rest of their gear together without another word. It wasn't an awkward silence. In fact, it was quite comfortable. Walking down off the jet, Sydney looked over at Vaughn. "Have you ever read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn?"
"That was random, Syd."
"Have you?"
"It was my favorite book when I was little. Why?"
"I've never read it. But I've always wanted to."
"I have a copy at home. I'll let you borrow it when we get back."
Sydney nodded and they returned to their comfortable silence all the way into the airport.
When they were inside the airport, their goal was to locate a rather well to do Argentine businessman named Pablo Boreo-Garcia. The mission was simple. Sydney, pretending to be a high-class prostitute, would go up to Boreo-Garcia and proposition him. While doing this, she would slip her hand into his coat pocket and retrieve a disk that had the locations of a few key SD-6 facilities that Sydney didn't have enough authorization to know about. Vaughn would monitor her progress from a maintenance room that had been converted into a temporary mission center.
Everything went according to plan up until the point where Sydney was supposed to bump into Boreo-Garcia. Vaughn, just seconds earlier, had confirmed that Boreo-Garcia was in place, but she couldn't see him anywhere.
"Maybe if I didn't have this hideous green tinted glasses to match my hot green latex mini dress," she muttered. She would have to talk to Kendall about these mission outfits when she got back. They needed to hire someone with a little style to start selecting her outfits instead of the horny, middle-aged man who seemed to be doing it now. At least then maybe the person would know that a high-class hooker wouldn't be caught dead in a dress like this.
"Vaughn, I don't see him," she said into her earpiece.
"The computer says he's standing ten yards behind you. The tracking device our agents placed on him an hour earlier hasn't malfunctioned or been tampered with. So it has to be him."
Sydney scanned around her and wasn't surprised when her eyes rested on a very familiar head of blond hair. "Sark," she growled.
"Sydney, if Sark is there, we should just abort this mission. The objective isn't important enough for you to confront him."
Sydney bit her bottom lip and made a split second decision. She took out her earpiece and flung it into a nearby trash container. Leaving her one last ounce of dignity behind, she walked up to him. "How did you get the tracking device off him, Sark?"
"Agent Bristow," Sark said as his eyes took in her appearance. "What? Is the CIA and SD-6 not paying you enough?"
"Very funny. Give me one reason why I shouldn't kick your ass right now."
Sark pointed behind her. Turning, she caught sight of Pablo Boreo-Garcia walking down the concourse. "This'll have to wait for another day."
"I hope that was a promise," Sark called as Sydney tried to catch up to her target.
Sydney hated leaving Sark behind. It had slowly become her main goal in her job to find some reason to take that man into US custody and prosecute him for all the times he's annoyed the hell out of her. But, at this moment, the mission was more important.
She caught up with her target and did her best to worm her way in to stand next to him. When she got close enough, she whispered a rather dirty suggestion into his ear. That made him pay attention to her and while his mind was on her proposition, she did her job and lifted the disk out of his coat pocket and into her purse.
The Argentine muttered some thing about whipped cream and a leather belt which gave Sydney the perfect excuse to leave. She slapped him hard across the face and began screaming in Spanish that she was an escort and escorts don't do that sort of thing.
Laughing, she sashayed away from her target. She did a quick scan to make sure that no one was watching her and that Sark was no longer in the terminal before ducking into the room Vaughn was occupying. "I got the disk."
"What the hell happened to the feed, Sydney?" he immediately asked upon seeing her.
"My earpiece must have sorted out," she lied. "Sark had to have some device that blocked out the transmitter waves. But let's not focus on that. I got the disk."
"And by coming in here, you compromised your alias."
"I'm sorry. But with Sark on the loose, I didn't want to have to carry this disk on my person for the next eight hours. So I took a chance by coming in here to hand it off to you early."
Vaughn sighed. "I'm sorry. That was a little insensitive. I know you're feeling a little put out because of the outfit."
"Don't bring it up," Sydney said glaring at him.
Vaughn shut the laptop he had been working on and put it into its case. "Here's what we're going to do. We obviously can't both go back to the jet. There's too much of a risk that Boreo-Garcia will connect both of your aliases. So, I'll go back alone within the hour. When I'm safely in the air, I'll contact the CIA. They'll book you on the first commercial flight back to Los Angeles under your Emma Walker alias."
"It'll probably be a while before they find me a flight out of here that has an opening." She bit her lip in nervousness. "I ruined your vacation, didn't I?"
"Not really. This mission wasn't on the same level of difficulty you and I are used to. It was like a walk in the park, so we'll consider that my vacation. Besides, I'll have a little downtime back in L.A. while I wait for you to join me there."
"None the less, I'm sorry for screwing things up by breaking mission protocol."
"It's nothing new, Syd. You do it all the time." He smiled and threw a bag to her. "I brought you this in case I had an opportunity to give it to you."
Sydney opened the bag to see a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. "Aw, Vaughn. You shouldn't have."
"I know how much that outfit's been bothering you. Plus, now you have a lot of time to wait things out." The way he was looking at her was slightly unsettling. It reminded her of the way the hooded Vaughn had looked at her when he entered the Irish pub in her dream.
"I should be going," she said motioning towards the door. He hadn't broken his gaze.
"Yeah," Vaughn said. The tension between them seemed to be igniting. It was always at moments like these that Sydney felt her will to not break the rules begin to falter. This would be the perfect moment to just give him a quick goodbye kiss. If their lives were normal, she could do that.
Knowing that one of them had to break up whatever it was that was in the air, she opened the door and smiled weakly at him before exiting. "Thanks for taking care of everything. I'll see you in L.A."
He nodded, and she was out the door.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Waiting an hour in the worst airport gift shop on the planet wasn't her idea of fun. When she figured she had give Vaughn enough time to do what he had planned, she made her way to the ticket counter and checked in as Emma Walker. Her flight didn't leave for another eight hours.
Sighing, she picked up the small bag of equipment Vaughn had handed her before she left the maintenance room and made her way down to Gate 29. There were only a handful of people sitting in the chairs. Sydney located a rather comfortable looking section and threw her pack down into one and herself into another.
This was normally the time where she would get out a book and start to read. But she hadn't been planning on this long wait so she hadn't come prepared. The gift shop had only had one dollar trashy, smut novels. And a trashy novel was the one thing she didn't need right now.
Her eyelids began to droop as the post-mission energy high wore off. She knew that falling asleep in the middle of a foreign airport with no one to watch over or protect her wasn't the smartest thing to do. But it seemed that these days sleep only came when it wanted to, not when it was convenient for her.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
"This damn hallway again," Sydney grumbled as she found herself in very familiar surroundings. Knowing the routine, she went right up to the two doors. The blue one now had a tree engraved on it in the same way that the Celtic symbol had been. Knowing that if she stuck with the pattern she should go through the black door, she felt her hand on the handle of the blue door wondering what would happen if she went against her instinct.
She pushed the door open and saw what was almost like a movie. It was the same World War II scene that had been behind the door before. Except this time she wasn't a part of it. She could see Genevieve and Lukas talking frantically in the barn. There was screaming and yelling going on around them.
Sydney saw a shadow fall over them, and both were flung to the ground from an explosion. The barn began to slowly burn. She watched Lukas haul himself up with all his might and hobble over to where Genevieve lay. Cradling her body, both he and Sydney watched as the barn burned around them.
The scene was so distressing that Sydney felt the need to help get these two young lovers out. She went through the doorway and met with unexpected results.
She had gone through the door and came right back out into the hallway. It seemed like her mind wouldn't let her go out of order. And she thought she now understood why that was. She had found out what had happened to Genevieve and Lukas after she had woken up from her previous dream. Her realization was she would probably have been better off not knowing.
She took a deep breath and opened the black door. The scene was a desert farm that didn't look to be too prosperous. Not wanting to delay it any longer, she stepped over the threshold and into the familiar time jolt.
Once her body had settled in, she closed her eyes and began to concentrate. She didn't get far; just enough to learn her name was Cassie, when she heard someone bellowing that very name.
"Yes, Uncle Geoff?" she called.
"I don't want you daydreaming your life away. There are things to be done if we want to respect your parent's dying wishes of making this farm as well off as it once was.
"Yes, Uncle Geoff." Sydney felt the weight of a bucket in her arms and realized that she must be getting some water. Letting her feet direct her walking, it wasn't surprising that they did indeed take her right to a well about five hundred yards off.
She also wasn't surprised to see a man who looked like Sark leaning against the well.
"Good afternoon, miss," he said in a slow, southern drawl.
"Good afternoon, sir. If you'll excuse me, I'll just get some water and be out of your way." She made a move to pull the bucket that was floating in the well to the surface.
Sark placed his hand on hers to stop her action. "Well, miss, you see, that's where we have a problem. I don't want you to get out of my way."
"Take your hands off me," Sydney said. When the man didn't immediately do so, she smacked him hard under the chin with the butt of her hand. There was a satisfying crack of bone meeting bone.
The man wasn't fazed for that long. He rubbed his jaw with one hand and grabbed Sydney's arm harshly with the other. "I was going to do this nicely. But now I think I'm going to have to forget that notion."
Before she could blink, Sydney found herself flung over his shoulder and being marched in the opposite way of her home. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she screamed.
"Well, you have a foul, little mouth on you, don't you?" the man said with a chuckle. "My name is Toby. I'm your kidnapper."
That shut up Sydney for a moment. She knew in the back of her mind that what Sark was saying was true. In this scenario, she had never met him before in her life. They weren't familiar friends or lovers or anything typical of her other dreams. "Why are you kidnapping me?" she stammered.
"Because you are the niece of a wealthy landowner. A landowner who happens to have stolen quite a sum of money from my brother. I intend to get that money back. If I don't, well, I guess your uncle won't have to worry about his little niece getting into trouble anymore."
"Don't call me little. I'm not that much younger than you. And don't for a second think my uncle is going to pay you a cent. He'll probably thank you for getting rid of me."
Sark set her down so that she was facing him and shook her sharply. "First rule. Don't ever lie to me." He heaved her back up on his shoulder and began marching again.
Sydney groaned as she felt herself do a completely un-Sydney-Bristow-like thing. She fainted dead away.
When she woke up, she knew immediately that a few days had passed. She was sitting in a dark room with her hands tied behind her back to a bedpost. If she had control over her body, she probably could have gotten herself untied within seconds. However, that was not the case.
She heard a floorboard outside the door creak before the door opened and light spilled into the room. The harshness of it made her flinch in pain.
"Sorry," she heard Sark apologize. He shut the door behind him and waited for their eyes to adjust to the darkness.
"Why are you doing this?" she heard herself say. 'Oh god, am I crying?' she thought to herself.
"I told you before. I'm only doing this because your uncle forced me to play my hand."
"And I told you, my uncle is not going to pay you any ransom. He doesn't care about me. He only wants the farm my parents left me."
Sark reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper. "Then why did he answer the ransom note I sent him?"
Sydney opened and shut her mouth trying to come up with an explanation but she could find none. "What does he say?"
He opened the letter and began to read it. When he was done, he crumpled it up into a ball and threw it across the room. "Your uncle says he won't pay a cent for your release. He told me to do with you what I will."
"I told you so. Will you let me go now?"
"I can't let you go." Sark looked over at where she was sitting. "A pretty little girl like you would be snatched up within seconds of leaving this house. There are a mighty large number of men out there dying for a little companionship. Mining is not the easiest way of life."
"Are you one of them?" Sydney asked. "Is that the real reason you took me?"
Sark growled in frustration and ripped her hands free of the rope that bound them. He pulled her up next to him and snarled in her face, "If you're trying to entice me, it won't work. I didn't take you so that I could have my way with you."
Sydney looked into his eyes. "But you wouldn't mind it."
He grabbed her and pulled her out the door. She squinted in the sudden light and before she could adjust, she found herself thrown out into the grass. "Leave. You're too much trouble."
The door slammed shut loudly, and she found herself alone with the sound of a million crickets chirping. Knowing that this might be her ticket out of here if she could put some distance between herself and her capturer before he changed his mind, she stood up and started to walk as fast as she could in a random direction.
After a few miles of walking, she found a tree which she rested herself against. She couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed that this young man who had stolen her didn't care to come round her up. A smart person would have realized that he could make money off of her in another way if ransom wouldn't work.
"Hello," she heard a rather slick voice say from her right.
"Who's there?"
A rather stock looking man stepped out into her sight of view. "What's a pretty young thing like you doing out here in the big, bad world? Are you alone, girl?"
She tried to think quick. "No, I'm not. My husband is right around that corner looking for a good place to settle down for the night."
"Lying doesn't suit you, lady." The man grabbed her in his arms and pushed her to the ground. "I bet you I could do whatever I want to you and no one will notice or care."
She could feel him rip the side of her dress open and then shift a little to pull down his pants. Realizing what was about to happen, she felt herself begin to cry. Not loudly. Just a soft little whimper.
Inside herself, Sydney was desperately trying to make herself wake up. She was not in control of this dream, and she wanted out. Between her dream self struggling to get free and her real self struggling to wake up, she didn't hear the noise behind her until a gun shot pierced the air.
The man on top of her slumped down onto her rather forcefully. She pushed him to the side and frantically tried to stand. "Shhh. Don't try to move," she heard Sark's voice whisper as his hand slowly touched her face.
Without another word, he scooped her up and began to carry her back the way they went. By the time they reached the house, she had gotten her wits and her voice back. "How did you know I needed your help?"
"I was following you the whole time. I couldn't let a nice, young lady like you meet her untimely death. What kind of person would that make me?"
"The kind of person who kidnaps nice, young ladies like me."
Sark placed her down on the bed. "I hate to have to tell you this after everything you've just been through. But I really wasn't expecting you to be here long enough to have to sleep. So there's only one bed. My bed. And we're going to have to share it."
She nodded and turned her back to him. A moment later, she felt the bed shift as he lay down with his back to hers. Both of them rested in silence, knowing the other person was as wide awake as they were. Finally, Sydney broke the silence. "Thank you. I don't know what I would have done if that man had had his way with me." She laughed to herself. "You know, I've never even had a man kiss me before."
"I find that hard to believe," she heard him say. She felt him flip over onto his other side.
"Why?"
"Because you're just about the prettiest woman I've ever seen. If I wasn't in this position, I'd probably be trying my darnedest to kiss you."
Sydney felt her heart skip a beat a little. Wondering why she was doing what she was, she turned over to look at him eye to eye. "Don't let a bad situation like this stop you," she whispered. Her body had begun to tremble in anticipation.
Sark's eyes lit up with desire as he leaned in to kiss her…
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
She woke up lazily to see a blond man standing over her. "Toby," she murmured as she pulled him into a kiss.
After a minute, the man broke away. "I only came over here for a little witty banter. If I had know you'd greet me like this, I would have woken you up sooner."
Sydney's eyes flew open as she recognized the familiar British voice that spoke to her. It wasn't the familiar southern drawl she associated with Toby, but it belonged to a man who looked just like him.