Sydney woke up groggily. She tried to concentrate on focusing her eyes, but quickly realized that it wasn't working. The events of the previous night came flooding back into her head. However, the fact that her waking was similar to the way she woke when she had been drugged wasn't fitting in with the timeline she remembered. There were no drugs involved the night before. A lot of yelling and cursing, lies and deceit. But no drugs.

Again, she tried to focus her eyes, and this time she had a little more success. She was no longer in her hotel room. The clothes on her body were not the black dress, but instead ugly grey sweats. The walls weren't an inviting light blue color, but stark, horribly dingy white. She tried to sit up and realized that she was strapped down to a metal bed.

"This all plays into the typical drugged and kidnapped theory," she thought to herself, "but how did someone get me out of the hotel without Vaughn noticing?"

The memories of their fight the night before came flooding back, and she realized that he probably hadn't been that concerned with her well being. Pushing that terrible thought to the side, she tried to figure out a way to get her arms free of their restraints. There was nothing sharp around, and she couldn't maneuver her hands up to the buckles.

Eventually, she got frustrated and just tried to muscle her way out of the bed.

"Miss Bristow!" said a voice from the doorway. "When are you going to stop struggling? It's been three days now since we put you in restraints. You need to get used to them, honey!"

Sydney took in the lady's appearance. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but only in a she-was-once-my-waitress or standing-next-to-you-in-line kind of way. She was dressed in a white uniform and was carrying a tray of pills.

"Who the hell are you?" Sydney screamed. "What the hell have you done to me? Where's Vaughn?"

"Oh, not that Vaughn man again." The lady shook her head. "Now, Sydney, you know you aren't allowed to talk about him. Especially because today you have visitors."

"Visitors?" This woman, this situation, were becoming way too confusing.

"Yes. Don't you remember the doctor telling you yesterday that your parents were coming up to visit you?"

"Doctor?" she asked. Then, she realized what the woman had just said. "My parents are coming to see me? Both of them? Together? Impossible."

"And why is that so impossible, Sydney?" the woman asked as she put a container of pills on the nightstand by Sydney's head.

"Because my father hates my mother's guts and would probably kill her on the spot if the US government didn't already have her in their custody. And would you quit saying my name in every other sentence?"

"Keep your voice down, Sydney. Dr. Malarkey says that it's not good for you to yell." The woman smiled at her and left the room.

"What the hell is going on?" Sydney screamed after her. "Tell me what is happening."

Sydney found herself alone again and still chained to the bed. She had no idea where she was and who would want her in their possession. It was still bothering her that she didn't know where Vaughn was and why the woman told her she wasn't allowed to talk to him.

After a few minutes, she gave up struggling with the straps. If she were going to get out of her alive, she would need to save up her energy so that meant just sitting back and waiting for the right opportunity.

That opportunity came rather quickly, but instead of seizing it, Sydney was left more confused. The door had opened, and the woman came in with two people in tow.

Sydney managed to spit out two words. "Mom? Dad?"

"We're right here, Sydney," her father said, smiling at her. He turned to the woman. "How is she doing today, Nurse Hathaway?"

"She had a little momentary lapse. She started talking about Michael Vaughn. And she was insisting that you were in government custody, Mrs. Bristow."

Sydney watched as her mother nodded and walked over to her bedside. "Sydney, darling, I'm not in a prison cell. I've never committed a crime. Honey, you need to start separating your dreams from reality."

"What is going on?" she asked while her mother gently stroked the side of her face. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"It's for you own good," Jack said. "You've been having these dreams for weeks now. You needed help."

"My dreams were harmless, Dad. I talked to you about them, Mom. You said that all I had to do was make a choice. I was going to make my choice today in St. Petersburg. I swear that I was. Why did you put me in here?"

"You've been in here for a week," the nurse informed her. "You can't have been in Russia yesterday. Try to focus and you'll remember."

Sydney humored the woman and tried to focus on where she had been the past day. In her mind, she remembered every single event that happened in Russia, her time with Sark at their house, all the haunting dreams she had had. But in the back of her mind, she also had memories of being in this bed, of this nurse coming in to check on her every hour, of begging her parents not to do this and that they could sort this out by themselves.

"What is going on?" she asked for the millionth time, tears in her eyes. "Why am I here?"

"The doctor said the effects of the drugs on her system might cause memory loss and they may even worsen her hallucinations," the nurse informed Jack and Irina.

Jack nodded and walked over to Sydney's bedside. "Sydney, you've been having horrible dreams for weeks now. Dreams of a life that doesn't exist."

"You keep talking about the CIA, sweetheart," Irina added. "That you're an agent there and for an evil organization called SD-6."

Jack jumped in. "But you're not, Sydney. You were a banker at the Credit Dauphine building downtown. You've worked there under Arvin Sloane for years. You go on frequent business trips for him."

"Credit Dauphine is a front to cover up SD-6's real activities. You know that, Dad. You work there with me, too. You're a double agent just like me."

"Sydney, your father sells airplane parts. He's always sold airplane parts."

"And I bet you're an English teacher, aren't you, Irina?"

Her mother sighed. "I don't know what to do, Jack. She refuses to call me by my real name. My name is Laura, Sydney. Laura Bristow. This Irina Derevko alias is a figment of your imagination."

"Just like Michael Vaughn is right?"

Jack smiled at his daughter. "She's coming out of the haze. Yes, Vaughn only exists in your mind. He might be a real person out there somewhere, but you've never met him. You don't have a CIA handler because you've never worked for the CIA."

"I'm sorry. Am I late?"

Sydney turned her head to see who was talking. When she recognized the voice, she almost started crying. "Will!"

Will smiled at her and entered the room. "Did you hear that, Mr. Bristow? She remembers who I am. She must be getting better."


"Will, tell them what I do. You know that I work for the CIA. I almost ruined your life because of it."

"Sydney, you and I have been married for the past five years. Nowhere in that time did you ever explain to me that you were an agent of the US government. I know it's hard to fathom, but that whole world is in your mind."

"I'm married to you?"

"Happily married and we have a little girl at home. She can't wait until her mommy comes back from vacation. So you see, Syd, you have to give this whole other life up. If not for my sake or your parents, do it for your daughter's sake."

"What is going on?" she asked. She could feel herself begin to cry and tried to shrug the tears back down. "Where's Francie, then? Is she real?"

Will was the one to finally answer after a few moments of silence. "Syd. Francie was your goldfish when you were five. You accidentally killed her."

Sydney started to laugh and cry at the same time. This whole situation was becoming more and more absurd.

"Don't upset yourself," Jack instructed. "I know that this is a hard concept to get a grasp on. But you're going to have to do just that. We need you to get better."

Sydney paid no attention to him and began to struggle against her bindings once more. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother get a rather nervous, confused face and run out into the hallway calling that she'd get a doctor. When she returned, a man was with her.

That man was Michael Vaughn.

"Vaughn!" she screamed when she saw him. "You have to get me out of here. I don't know what's happened but somehow all the people I love have been brainwashed into thinking that our lives didn't exist. They all told me that you didn't exist."

"Sydney, Sydney, Sydney," Vaughn said as he took a hypodermic needle out of his lab coat pocket. "You tried that one on me yesterday. My name is not Michael Vaughn. I'm Doctor Ken Malarkey, your physician. I'm about to administer a mild sedative. It shouldn't put you to sleep, but it should calm you down a great deal."

"Vaughn. Why are you doing this to me? I apologized for what I did with Sark."

"Oh, not this Sark character again," she heard Will mutter.

"Sark's a real person," she screamed. Or at least she tried to scream. The mild sedative made it come out as more of a whimper than a scream.

"No, he's not," Doctor Vaughn explained. "The man you believe to be this Julian Sark is actually the janitor who cleans your room at night. Every time he comes in here, you try to persuade him to help you escape. He's not an evil free agent. He's not going to help you."

"Sark would always help me if I needed him. You're lying."

"I think we're upsetting here," Irina said to everyone present. "This visit was a mistake. It's too soon. I'm sorry, Will. It looks like you're going to have to raise little Amy by yourself for at least a little while longer. I'm sure Sydney will snap out of this soon."

Will nodded and began walking to the door as Jack put his arm around him. Irina slowly followed while Nurse Hathaway checked her vitals and then left. The only one left in the room was Vaughn.

"Please tell me that there's some reasonable explanation for all this," she pleaded with him.

"Listen. You're going to have to give up these silly notions if you ever want to have a real life again. I have affection for you, you know that. But I can't make the doctors that lenient. If you stay in this kind of shape, they'll never grant your release. And there's a little girl out there desperate to see her mommy again. So, try to be strong, Sydney. The ones you love need you."

Vaughn got up and went to leave. He could hear Sydney screaming at him that he was wrong, that she wasn't insane, that she lived the life of spy. It almost made him want to cry. He had never met anyone so delusional.

As the door banged shut, he could still hear her screams. All the way down the hall, he could still hear her screams.