Sydney stared in awe at the streets of Tokyo. She had been here once before, and it just amazed her at how different the culture was in comparison to the United States. For instance, at that moment, she was standing on a street corner at four in the morning with a man next to her. There were no cars in sight. If she were back home, she wouldn't hesitate to cross the street. However, in Japan, no one would dare to break that law. You had to wait until the little sign said it was okay to walk no matter how slow traffic was.
"Funny," she thought to herself. "We're in a place that is so law-abiding and proper, and yet nothing has gone right for us yet."
The four of them hadn't been in Tokyo for more than an hour, and they were pretty much on their own. It turned out that Taki Asako, Jack's munitions contact, had been killed in a car accident a week earlier. When they had arrived at Asako's apartment, it was pretty much ransacked.
Luckily, Sydney was able to find the location of one of his many storage facilities. It was almost completely wiped clean. But there was the climbing rope, carabineers, and hand brake she had requested. So all wasn't lost.
Sydney snapped out of her little recap as she saw the man next to her begin to cross the street out of the corner of her eye. She reached up and clicked on her earpiece. "Vaughn, are you there?"
"Lauren and I are right here, Syd."
"Good. Just wanted to make sure the equipment was working. I'm going to go radio silent for now. Make sure you can override it, though. I want to hear your voices in my ear if anything goes wrong."
"You got it."
Sydney put her hand up to click her ear piece off, but instead of doing just that, she switched to a private channel. "Vaughn, keep acting normal. I just wanted to let you know that I think the Covenant might be setting us up."
She got no response, just like she expected. But after a moment, she heard him excuse himself from Lauren's presence. "What the hell are you talking about, Syd?" he asked once he had gotten a safe distance away.
"Marshall hasn't contacted us at all, right?"
"Yes. We all agreed that that meant he thought we didn't need aliases for this one."
"Yes, we all agreed on that reason when we were together. But I was lying. I mean, don't you find it a little odd that he didn't contact us to say we didn't need aliases? Because I do. Marshall's an incredibly thorough man. There's no way he would have let us go into this mission with some kind of contact. I think the Covenant knows we're coming. They blocked all transmissions from the CIA to us. Marshall has probably been contacting us. We just don't know it."
"You think the mole is behind this?"
"I know the mole is behind this. I just wanted you to know that it was probably going to be a set-up. But I can handle it."
"Any new clues as to who it might be?"
"I'm still as confused as ever. I can't imagine any of my friends betraying me like that."
"Weiss did," Vaughn pointed out. "And so did Francie. Though it actually wasn't the real Francie."
"Are you saying that I encourage my friends to betray me?" she asked with a laugh.
"Well, it does happen a lot, Syd," he teased.
"That is not funny. And need I remind you we're on a mission, Agent Vaughn."
She could hear him sober up on the other end. "So how are you going to get around the fact that the Covenant is expecting you?"
"I'm the best there is at what I do. Plus, I have a little deviation from the plan which should throw the Covenant off a step or two."
"Be careful, Syd."
"I will. Going radio silent for real this time." She clicked off the earpiece just as she saw Will sitting on a bench in front of her. "Hey."
Will continued to look out into the horizon. "I bet you've seen sunrises in every country in the world, haven't you?"
Sydney looked out at where the sky was a deep pink and orange. "Probably. But it doesn't mean I can't still appreciate one when I see it. So, are you ready to do this?"
"No. But it looks like I have no choice." Will sighed and stood up.
"Nope," she said with a smile. She led him down an alley that was right behind the bench he was sitting on.
The path they took twisted and turned into more alleys. They walked without saying a word for at least five minutes before Sydney held her hand up, and they stopped in their tracks.
"This is it," she said with a sly smile.
"This is what? It looks like we're in a laundromat." The alleyway had opened up into a large area of sheets hanging up to dry. It looked like someone's backyard during the middle of summer in the alleyways of Tokyo.
"This is how we're going to get into that building."
Will looked up and saw that they were indeed in front of a tall building. "Is that where they're holding Sark?"
"Yes, it is." Sydney smiled at him. "Now you're going to stay here. If I'm not back in an hour, go get Vaughn."
"Wait a minute!" Will yelled. "You're leaving me here?"
"There's been a change of plans. I'm going in alone. It'll be a lot less risky."
Before Will had a chance to argue some more, Sydney disappeared into the hanging sheets.
"Great," he muttered. He noticed out of the corner of his eye there was a woman hanging laundry. "Do you need any help? Because it looks like I'm going to be here for a while."
Sydney made sure that she had truly lost Will before she ducked out of the sheets and back into the alley. She thanked whoever was listening that it was a slightly windy and cloudy day. Otherwise, Will might have noticed that they were a good two blocks around from the Tokyo Building of NTT Do Co Mo. For his own safety, she wanted him as far off from their true destination as she could manage.
Gritting her teeth, she began to sprint down the still abandoned streets. She wanted every possible second she could get to search for Sark. There was a nagging feeling in the bottom of her gut that if she didn't find him today, her chances of ever finding him wouldn't be that good.
She flung open the door to the office building that neighbored the Tokyo Building and quickly made her way to the first elevator she could find. She picked the 37th floor at random and bit her fingernails as the car slowly rose up to the selected floor.
Trying to act like she was supposed to be in the building, she made her way to the first vacant office with a balcony she could find on the north side of the building. Sliding open the door, she let herself outside onto the balcony and reached into her pack.
This had been the reason why she demanded to have a rope and a hand brake. The Covenant might know she was coming, but they didn't know how discreet she could be when she wanted to. In her mind, she figured with all her previous mission experience, this should be a walk in the park. Now that she actually had to do it, she was beginning to have her doubts.
Once the hand brake was properly placed, she used a jettison pack Marshall had whipped up for her real quick before he left Manhattan to propel the rope over onto the side of the next building. That building just happened to be the Tokyo building.
Praying that she had assembled it properly, she let her weight fling her over into the side of the other building. The impact was not quite as bad as she had imagined, although the glass on the window did crack a little upon contact. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the small glasscutter she had found in her office back in the penthouse.
"Thank god I never throw things away," she said to herself as she went to work cutting the glass.
Within a minute, she had extracted a circle of glass big enough to fit her whole body through. She slid through the hole and disengaged the rope. It fell all thirty-six stories onto the pavement below.
"Okay, that's done," she said as she turned to survey the office she had landed herself in. "Now I just have to find my fiancé without running into one of the thousands of agents in this building who would just love to kill me. Simple."
Taking a deep breath, she let herself out into the hallway and took a look around. It didn't appear like there was anyone else on the floor. She let her guard down slightly and turned the corner only to be grabbed from behind.
A hand came over her mouth, preventing her from screaming, as a familiar voice echoed in her ear. "It's nice to see you again, Agent Bristow."
Sydney almost choked in surprise. She really hadn't expected it to be that easy. Shrugging herself out of his grip, she turned to face him and flung her arms around her neck. Feeling the weight of his body holding hers up almost made her want to forget where she was and just melt into him.
The moment would have been perfect if she didn't feel something pressing hard into her left side. She looked down to see that Sark held a gun. "What are you doing, Sark?" she asked hesitantly.
"What I'm always doing. My job."
"This isn't funny, Julian. Put the gun down. We need to get you out of here before the Covenant realizes that you're loose from wherever they had you pent up."
"I'm not going anywhere with you, Agent Bristow. And the Covenant does not have me pent up."
"Stop calling me that. You haven't used that term in years. Honestly, you need to cut the crap right now before this situation gets any worse." She had a nagging feeling in the back of her head of what was really going on. But no one could have forced her to admit it. It was just too horrible a concept to even entertain the thought of it being true. "There's no way that Sark could have forgotten what-- No. No way," she thought.
Sark looked at her with a confused face. "Why are you acting so strange?"
"Why are you acting so strange?" When she saw him smirk, something snapped. "I swear to god, if you think this is funny, I will take back the promise I made you and kick your ass all the way out of this building. I don't care who notices."
"When did you promise not to hurt me, Sydney? That seemed like your specialty last time I checked."
Sydney ignored the gun and walked toward him. "Did the Covenant do something to you, Julian?"
He lowered the gun but still kept his finger on the trigger. "If you call taking all my money and then forcing me to work for them, then yes, they did."
"That was years ago. I meant since you were taken by Weiss and Conway."
"What the hell are you talking about? Weiss is your little co-worker, not mine. And I don't know who the hell this Conway guy is."
"Stephanie Conway is a woman. You know that. What is wrong with you?" Her face suddenly paled when the realization hit her that what she hadn't been able to admit to herself might be happening thirty seconds earlier did seem to be what was going on . "You don't remember what's happened, do you? The Covenant did something to you."
"I think I would have known if the Covenant played with my brain. Why are you so concerned for me? The last I checked you would have given up everything just to be able to put a bullet between my eyes."
"I love you, Julian. You know that."
Her heart stopped as he broke out laughing. "You're joking, right?" he said. That was when he noticed the hurt expression that was on her face. "You're not joking. You actually love me. Well, this is all the sudden a twisted little game we're playing, now isn't it?"
"I have loved you since that day you saved me in Rio. You do remember Rio, don't you?" His face stayed blank as her eyes pleaded with him to remember something. Anything. "You know Rio de Janeiro? The hole we fell into? Or the months I stayed with you in your flat in London? Nothing?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Julian, you and I have been living together for the past two years."
Sark raised the gun up in her face again. "If this is your pathetic attempt to distract me so that you can escape, it's not working. You used to be really good at lying to me and leading me on. But you've gotten rusty in the past few years, Sydney. Your lies aren't even good anymore."
Sydney kept her eyes focused on his and not the gun. "You're actually going to shoot me?"
"That was the plan."
Sydney nodded and, without a thought, kicked him hard in the gut. He doubled over in pain, effectively lowering his guard and the gun. Before he realized it, she had him pressed up against the wall with one hand pinned under him and the other twisted behind his back. "You listen to me. I don't know what the hell the Covenant did to you, but I need you to stop pointing that gun at me. Can you do that?" When he didn't respond, she twisted his arm a little harder.
"Fine. I promise to neither point the gun nor shoot you."
Sydney eased her hold on him. He took full advantage of that and slammed her back into the opposite wall. "I didn't promise not to hurt you, though. I know how much you love the pain."
Sark was thrown off as he saw tears begin to well up in Sydney's eyes. He let go of her and backed away a few steps. "Bloody hell. You really do care about me, don't you?"
"Yes," she said as she turned to face him. "The Covenant must have taken away your memories of me. I lost you two weeks ago in an explosion in Miami. We were on a mission to save Tyler Vaughn."
"Your boyfriend's son?" Sark asked astonished.
"Once again, Vaughn has not been my boyfriend for a long time. That has actually been your role for quite some time now."
"I can't believe you actually fell in love with me. Last I checked, I couldn't even get you to be my partner."
"That's how this whole thing started, me being your partner." Sydney paused as she realized what he had just said. "Does this mean you believe me that the Covenant took away your memories?"
"No. It just intrigues me. I want to know if you can actually come up with something to convince me. I'll let you in on a secret. It isn't really working yet."
"What did the Covenant tell you about where you've been the past three years?"
"I was on a special assignment. They had to wipe my memories clean so that I could still function as an agent. It's not an uncommon procedure."
"That sounds like a rather shady cover-up to me," Sydney pointed out. "I mean, did they ever give you anything besides that? Or were you just stupid to accept that they had to wipe out three years of your life for security reasons? The Sark I knew would never accept that."
"I'm not saying I accept that either. It's just a convenient answer for me at this moment."
"What have you done to prove it's true? You can't just be sitting around. You have to be doing something."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "You're beginning to annoy me. And when I get annoyed, my trigger finger gets a little jumpy."
"You promised you wouldn't shoot me."
"There are many other ways to kill you other than shooting."
"Is that what you grabbed me for? You're supposed to kill me?"
"That was the original assignment."
"What's the assignment now?"
"I think it's still the same. Although a few things aren't right in this scenario. Where's your partner?"
"My partner is indisposed right now. Let's just leave it at that." Sydney held her arms up. "Well, if you're going to kill me, we might as well get it over with."
She closed her eyes and waited for the impact of the bullet. After a few minutes of standing there with nothing happening, she hesitantly opened her eyes. "What's wrong? I thought you were supposed to kill me. I mean, isn't that what your precious little bosses want? Do you even know who's running the Covenant now?"
"Stop asking me questions," Sark demanded.
Sydney smirked and walked right up into his face. "I have a little news for you, Sark. The Covenant might have done a good mind wipe on you, but they couldn't do anything about this." She poked him hard in the chest. "I don't think you could kill me even if that's what you really wanted."
"Who's saying that's not what I want?"
"Come on. There has never been a time during the period we've known each other where I ever thought you actually wanted to kill me. Sleep with me, yes. Kill me, no."
Sark smirked at her. "Well, you're a lovely woman. Any warm-blooded man would want to get you into his bed."
"And you've had me there many a time," she said, smirking right back at him.
"So we're at an impasse." Sark said.
"I guess so." Sydney sighed and took the gun out of his hands. "Let's get rid of that." She tossed it down the hall. "You might not remember it, Julian, but my life has revolved around you for a long time now. And I have been your whole life for almost as long. My mother always told me that you only have one great love your whole life. I thought I screwed that one up years ago. There have been four great men in my life whom I've loved with all my heart. And I hurt each one of them. It's only after I really got to know you that I realized my mother was right. A person does only get one great love. And for me, that's you. You see, it just took me a while to find you."
"Nice speech. Have you been practicing that one?" he asked.
Sydney's heart stung. It wasn't easy getting used to the old, snarky, mean Sark that she hadn't thought she'd ever see again. Sighing, she looked him straight in the eye. "I have a proposition for you. We both know that you don't want to be working for the Covenant. The only reason you're here is because you think they still have the money you inherited. Well, they don't. Together, you and I got that back over ten months ago. Legally, I might add. So you really have no reason to stay."
"What's your point?"
"I want to offer you a partnership. Come back with me. Give me a chance to actually convince you that I'm telling the truth. And at the very least, it's where the money you so desperately want is located."
"What's in it for you?"
"Two things. One, you mentioned something to me right before the Covenant got a hold of you in Miami. There's something going down with them, and the Sark I knew had some information he wasn't telling me. I need that information."
"And two?"
Sydney grabbed the back of his head and ground her lips into his with a passion. She could feel his arms unconsciously come up around her. Knowing she had him hook, line, and sinker, she pulled back. "And two, I kind of missed being able to do that whenever I wanted. That and the way you had such horrible bed hair in the morning."
Chuckling, Sydney began walking down the hall a few steps before turning around to see that Sark hadn't moved a muscle since she had kissed him. "So are you coming?"
"Will you be doing that a lot?"
"Probably. I mean, the man I'm in love with is still in there somewhere. I think I'll have to be doing that a lot to keep reminding you that you need to try to get your memory back."
He smirked at her as he began walking towards where she had stopped. "What the hell then! Things could be a lot worse than this, and I'm intrigued. I'm in."
Nodding, she grabbed his hands and dragged him down the hall to the nearest stairwell. "Hope the Covenant keeps you in good shape. Because we were talking quite a long time in that hallway. They probably know I'm here."
On cue, there were gunshots from above beginning to fall down upon them. "You know it's not a real date between you and I until someone starts shooting at us," Sydney said as they plastered themselves against the wall to momentarily get out of the way of the bullets.
Together, Sydney and Sark rushed down all thirty-six flights of stairs, dodging ricochet bullets the whole time. When they reached the door leading out into the lobby, Sydney quickly pulled him up against the wall. "We need to get out that door, no matter what. Don't stop."
"Are you scared that I'm lying to you? That I might just shoot you in the back when we get out there?" he whispered into her ear.
The familiarity of his voice so close to her sent shivers down her spine. She tried to shake it off and focus on what she had to do to get them out of the building. "That just makes it all the more fun," she said with a devilish grin. She let go of him and launched herself out into the lobby.
Sark smiled to himself and followed her out. He had never seen Sydney Bristow act this fearless and happy before. Even if she was lying to him about where he had been the past three years, something had definitely changed in her. She was actually fun.
He almost stopped halfway across the lobby as he realized why her behavior was so familiar to him. She was acting just as if he would in the same situation. Whether or not they were actually in love, it suddenly wasn't hard for him to believe that they had spent some amount of time together during his lost time.
When they were a few blocks away from the Tokyo building, Sydney finally slowed down and motioned for him to go into the nearest shop. Smiling at him, she reached up to turn her earpiece on. "Vaughn. I got him. We're heading home. I'll talk to you when we're back in the penthouse."
"Good job, Syd," she heard him say on the other line.
"Do you have Will with you?" Lauren asked.
"Um… actually, it's a long story. But one of you are going to have to go to the back entrance of the Ho Chi Cleaners and tell Will that the mission's over."
"I'm not even going to ask," Vaughn said with a laugh.
Sydney clicked her earpiece off. "Now tell me why you really decided to come with me."
"The Covenant thought that you were important in whatever's coming up. If they really don't have my money, there was no point in me staying and helping them gather information that I could just get and use myself."
"So, you want to use me to get ahead in the spy world?" she said, narrowing her eyes.
"Would you expect anything more of me?"
"Actually, I would have expected more. You're not exactly the same ruthless person you once were."
"Don't tell me that we have a suburban house with a white picket fence and two point five kids and a dog named Fido."
"Do I look like the girl that would have a dog named Fido?" Sydney rolled her eyes and started to walk. Sark jogged a little to catch up to her. "You and I have a Manhattan penthouse which we both work out of. We have a normal life. It's something that we both wanted."
"I don't think I've ever wanted a normal life."
"You did… once." Sydney trailed off as she began to realize how difficult a situation she had been put into. It had taken her so long to get Sark to soften up a little and admit that he loved her. In fact, she had almost died trying to get him to do just that. She was pretty sure that she didn't want to go through all that again.
But in the back of her mine, she realized she would. She would give anything to set her life right.
It was all due to the simple fact that she believed in him. She believed that somehow together they could set things right. She had been willing to give up everything to find him, and now that she had, she wasn't about to accept defeat just because the Covenant toyed with his head a little. She wasn't the kind of person to accept defeat that easily.
She looked over at the man who didn't seem to know her at all. There was so much to tell him about what was between them. The only thing she was regretting was having to tell him that his little sister had been killed. The Sark standing next to her wouldn't be so happy to hear that Lina had been killed to save Sydney's life.
No, she was not looking forward to that at all.
"Funny," she thought to herself. "We're in a place that is so law-abiding and proper, and yet nothing has gone right for us yet."
The four of them hadn't been in Tokyo for more than an hour, and they were pretty much on their own. It turned out that Taki Asako, Jack's munitions contact, had been killed in a car accident a week earlier. When they had arrived at Asako's apartment, it was pretty much ransacked.
Luckily, Sydney was able to find the location of one of his many storage facilities. It was almost completely wiped clean. But there was the climbing rope, carabineers, and hand brake she had requested. So all wasn't lost.
Sydney snapped out of her little recap as she saw the man next to her begin to cross the street out of the corner of her eye. She reached up and clicked on her earpiece. "Vaughn, are you there?"
"Lauren and I are right here, Syd."
"Good. Just wanted to make sure the equipment was working. I'm going to go radio silent for now. Make sure you can override it, though. I want to hear your voices in my ear if anything goes wrong."
"You got it."
Sydney put her hand up to click her ear piece off, but instead of doing just that, she switched to a private channel. "Vaughn, keep acting normal. I just wanted to let you know that I think the Covenant might be setting us up."
She got no response, just like she expected. But after a moment, she heard him excuse himself from Lauren's presence. "What the hell are you talking about, Syd?" he asked once he had gotten a safe distance away.
"Marshall hasn't contacted us at all, right?"
"Yes. We all agreed that that meant he thought we didn't need aliases for this one."
"Yes, we all agreed on that reason when we were together. But I was lying. I mean, don't you find it a little odd that he didn't contact us to say we didn't need aliases? Because I do. Marshall's an incredibly thorough man. There's no way he would have let us go into this mission with some kind of contact. I think the Covenant knows we're coming. They blocked all transmissions from the CIA to us. Marshall has probably been contacting us. We just don't know it."
"You think the mole is behind this?"
"I know the mole is behind this. I just wanted you to know that it was probably going to be a set-up. But I can handle it."
"Any new clues as to who it might be?"
"I'm still as confused as ever. I can't imagine any of my friends betraying me like that."
"Weiss did," Vaughn pointed out. "And so did Francie. Though it actually wasn't the real Francie."
"Are you saying that I encourage my friends to betray me?" she asked with a laugh.
"Well, it does happen a lot, Syd," he teased.
"That is not funny. And need I remind you we're on a mission, Agent Vaughn."
She could hear him sober up on the other end. "So how are you going to get around the fact that the Covenant is expecting you?"
"I'm the best there is at what I do. Plus, I have a little deviation from the plan which should throw the Covenant off a step or two."
"Be careful, Syd."
"I will. Going radio silent for real this time." She clicked off the earpiece just as she saw Will sitting on a bench in front of her. "Hey."
Will continued to look out into the horizon. "I bet you've seen sunrises in every country in the world, haven't you?"
Sydney looked out at where the sky was a deep pink and orange. "Probably. But it doesn't mean I can't still appreciate one when I see it. So, are you ready to do this?"
"No. But it looks like I have no choice." Will sighed and stood up.
"Nope," she said with a smile. She led him down an alley that was right behind the bench he was sitting on.
The path they took twisted and turned into more alleys. They walked without saying a word for at least five minutes before Sydney held her hand up, and they stopped in their tracks.
"This is it," she said with a sly smile.
"This is what? It looks like we're in a laundromat." The alleyway had opened up into a large area of sheets hanging up to dry. It looked like someone's backyard during the middle of summer in the alleyways of Tokyo.
"This is how we're going to get into that building."
Will looked up and saw that they were indeed in front of a tall building. "Is that where they're holding Sark?"
"Yes, it is." Sydney smiled at him. "Now you're going to stay here. If I'm not back in an hour, go get Vaughn."
"Wait a minute!" Will yelled. "You're leaving me here?"
"There's been a change of plans. I'm going in alone. It'll be a lot less risky."
Before Will had a chance to argue some more, Sydney disappeared into the hanging sheets.
"Great," he muttered. He noticed out of the corner of his eye there was a woman hanging laundry. "Do you need any help? Because it looks like I'm going to be here for a while."
Sydney made sure that she had truly lost Will before she ducked out of the sheets and back into the alley. She thanked whoever was listening that it was a slightly windy and cloudy day. Otherwise, Will might have noticed that they were a good two blocks around from the Tokyo Building of NTT Do Co Mo. For his own safety, she wanted him as far off from their true destination as she could manage.
Gritting her teeth, she began to sprint down the still abandoned streets. She wanted every possible second she could get to search for Sark. There was a nagging feeling in the bottom of her gut that if she didn't find him today, her chances of ever finding him wouldn't be that good.
She flung open the door to the office building that neighbored the Tokyo Building and quickly made her way to the first elevator she could find. She picked the 37th floor at random and bit her fingernails as the car slowly rose up to the selected floor.
Trying to act like she was supposed to be in the building, she made her way to the first vacant office with a balcony she could find on the north side of the building. Sliding open the door, she let herself outside onto the balcony and reached into her pack.
This had been the reason why she demanded to have a rope and a hand brake. The Covenant might know she was coming, but they didn't know how discreet she could be when she wanted to. In her mind, she figured with all her previous mission experience, this should be a walk in the park. Now that she actually had to do it, she was beginning to have her doubts.
Once the hand brake was properly placed, she used a jettison pack Marshall had whipped up for her real quick before he left Manhattan to propel the rope over onto the side of the next building. That building just happened to be the Tokyo building.
Praying that she had assembled it properly, she let her weight fling her over into the side of the other building. The impact was not quite as bad as she had imagined, although the glass on the window did crack a little upon contact. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the small glasscutter she had found in her office back in the penthouse.
"Thank god I never throw things away," she said to herself as she went to work cutting the glass.
Within a minute, she had extracted a circle of glass big enough to fit her whole body through. She slid through the hole and disengaged the rope. It fell all thirty-six stories onto the pavement below.
"Okay, that's done," she said as she turned to survey the office she had landed herself in. "Now I just have to find my fiancé without running into one of the thousands of agents in this building who would just love to kill me. Simple."
Taking a deep breath, she let herself out into the hallway and took a look around. It didn't appear like there was anyone else on the floor. She let her guard down slightly and turned the corner only to be grabbed from behind.
A hand came over her mouth, preventing her from screaming, as a familiar voice echoed in her ear. "It's nice to see you again, Agent Bristow."
Sydney almost choked in surprise. She really hadn't expected it to be that easy. Shrugging herself out of his grip, she turned to face him and flung her arms around her neck. Feeling the weight of his body holding hers up almost made her want to forget where she was and just melt into him.
The moment would have been perfect if she didn't feel something pressing hard into her left side. She looked down to see that Sark held a gun. "What are you doing, Sark?" she asked hesitantly.
"What I'm always doing. My job."
"This isn't funny, Julian. Put the gun down. We need to get you out of here before the Covenant realizes that you're loose from wherever they had you pent up."
"I'm not going anywhere with you, Agent Bristow. And the Covenant does not have me pent up."
"Stop calling me that. You haven't used that term in years. Honestly, you need to cut the crap right now before this situation gets any worse." She had a nagging feeling in the back of her head of what was really going on. But no one could have forced her to admit it. It was just too horrible a concept to even entertain the thought of it being true. "There's no way that Sark could have forgotten what-- No. No way," she thought.
Sark looked at her with a confused face. "Why are you acting so strange?"
"Why are you acting so strange?" When she saw him smirk, something snapped. "I swear to god, if you think this is funny, I will take back the promise I made you and kick your ass all the way out of this building. I don't care who notices."
"When did you promise not to hurt me, Sydney? That seemed like your specialty last time I checked."
Sydney ignored the gun and walked toward him. "Did the Covenant do something to you, Julian?"
He lowered the gun but still kept his finger on the trigger. "If you call taking all my money and then forcing me to work for them, then yes, they did."
"That was years ago. I meant since you were taken by Weiss and Conway."
"What the hell are you talking about? Weiss is your little co-worker, not mine. And I don't know who the hell this Conway guy is."
"Stephanie Conway is a woman. You know that. What is wrong with you?" Her face suddenly paled when the realization hit her that what she hadn't been able to admit to herself might be happening thirty seconds earlier did seem to be what was going on . "You don't remember what's happened, do you? The Covenant did something to you."
"I think I would have known if the Covenant played with my brain. Why are you so concerned for me? The last I checked you would have given up everything just to be able to put a bullet between my eyes."
"I love you, Julian. You know that."
Her heart stopped as he broke out laughing. "You're joking, right?" he said. That was when he noticed the hurt expression that was on her face. "You're not joking. You actually love me. Well, this is all the sudden a twisted little game we're playing, now isn't it?"
"I have loved you since that day you saved me in Rio. You do remember Rio, don't you?" His face stayed blank as her eyes pleaded with him to remember something. Anything. "You know Rio de Janeiro? The hole we fell into? Or the months I stayed with you in your flat in London? Nothing?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Julian, you and I have been living together for the past two years."
Sark raised the gun up in her face again. "If this is your pathetic attempt to distract me so that you can escape, it's not working. You used to be really good at lying to me and leading me on. But you've gotten rusty in the past few years, Sydney. Your lies aren't even good anymore."
Sydney kept her eyes focused on his and not the gun. "You're actually going to shoot me?"
"That was the plan."
Sydney nodded and, without a thought, kicked him hard in the gut. He doubled over in pain, effectively lowering his guard and the gun. Before he realized it, she had him pressed up against the wall with one hand pinned under him and the other twisted behind his back. "You listen to me. I don't know what the hell the Covenant did to you, but I need you to stop pointing that gun at me. Can you do that?" When he didn't respond, she twisted his arm a little harder.
"Fine. I promise to neither point the gun nor shoot you."
Sydney eased her hold on him. He took full advantage of that and slammed her back into the opposite wall. "I didn't promise not to hurt you, though. I know how much you love the pain."
Sark was thrown off as he saw tears begin to well up in Sydney's eyes. He let go of her and backed away a few steps. "Bloody hell. You really do care about me, don't you?"
"Yes," she said as she turned to face him. "The Covenant must have taken away your memories of me. I lost you two weeks ago in an explosion in Miami. We were on a mission to save Tyler Vaughn."
"Your boyfriend's son?" Sark asked astonished.
"Once again, Vaughn has not been my boyfriend for a long time. That has actually been your role for quite some time now."
"I can't believe you actually fell in love with me. Last I checked, I couldn't even get you to be my partner."
"That's how this whole thing started, me being your partner." Sydney paused as she realized what he had just said. "Does this mean you believe me that the Covenant took away your memories?"
"No. It just intrigues me. I want to know if you can actually come up with something to convince me. I'll let you in on a secret. It isn't really working yet."
"What did the Covenant tell you about where you've been the past three years?"
"I was on a special assignment. They had to wipe my memories clean so that I could still function as an agent. It's not an uncommon procedure."
"That sounds like a rather shady cover-up to me," Sydney pointed out. "I mean, did they ever give you anything besides that? Or were you just stupid to accept that they had to wipe out three years of your life for security reasons? The Sark I knew would never accept that."
"I'm not saying I accept that either. It's just a convenient answer for me at this moment."
"What have you done to prove it's true? You can't just be sitting around. You have to be doing something."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "You're beginning to annoy me. And when I get annoyed, my trigger finger gets a little jumpy."
"You promised you wouldn't shoot me."
"There are many other ways to kill you other than shooting."
"Is that what you grabbed me for? You're supposed to kill me?"
"That was the original assignment."
"What's the assignment now?"
"I think it's still the same. Although a few things aren't right in this scenario. Where's your partner?"
"My partner is indisposed right now. Let's just leave it at that." Sydney held her arms up. "Well, if you're going to kill me, we might as well get it over with."
She closed her eyes and waited for the impact of the bullet. After a few minutes of standing there with nothing happening, she hesitantly opened her eyes. "What's wrong? I thought you were supposed to kill me. I mean, isn't that what your precious little bosses want? Do you even know who's running the Covenant now?"
"Stop asking me questions," Sark demanded.
Sydney smirked and walked right up into his face. "I have a little news for you, Sark. The Covenant might have done a good mind wipe on you, but they couldn't do anything about this." She poked him hard in the chest. "I don't think you could kill me even if that's what you really wanted."
"Who's saying that's not what I want?"
"Come on. There has never been a time during the period we've known each other where I ever thought you actually wanted to kill me. Sleep with me, yes. Kill me, no."
Sark smirked at her. "Well, you're a lovely woman. Any warm-blooded man would want to get you into his bed."
"And you've had me there many a time," she said, smirking right back at him.
"So we're at an impasse." Sark said.
"I guess so." Sydney sighed and took the gun out of his hands. "Let's get rid of that." She tossed it down the hall. "You might not remember it, Julian, but my life has revolved around you for a long time now. And I have been your whole life for almost as long. My mother always told me that you only have one great love your whole life. I thought I screwed that one up years ago. There have been four great men in my life whom I've loved with all my heart. And I hurt each one of them. It's only after I really got to know you that I realized my mother was right. A person does only get one great love. And for me, that's you. You see, it just took me a while to find you."
"Nice speech. Have you been practicing that one?" he asked.
Sydney's heart stung. It wasn't easy getting used to the old, snarky, mean Sark that she hadn't thought she'd ever see again. Sighing, she looked him straight in the eye. "I have a proposition for you. We both know that you don't want to be working for the Covenant. The only reason you're here is because you think they still have the money you inherited. Well, they don't. Together, you and I got that back over ten months ago. Legally, I might add. So you really have no reason to stay."
"What's your point?"
"I want to offer you a partnership. Come back with me. Give me a chance to actually convince you that I'm telling the truth. And at the very least, it's where the money you so desperately want is located."
"What's in it for you?"
"Two things. One, you mentioned something to me right before the Covenant got a hold of you in Miami. There's something going down with them, and the Sark I knew had some information he wasn't telling me. I need that information."
"And two?"
Sydney grabbed the back of his head and ground her lips into his with a passion. She could feel his arms unconsciously come up around her. Knowing she had him hook, line, and sinker, she pulled back. "And two, I kind of missed being able to do that whenever I wanted. That and the way you had such horrible bed hair in the morning."
Chuckling, Sydney began walking down the hall a few steps before turning around to see that Sark hadn't moved a muscle since she had kissed him. "So are you coming?"
"Will you be doing that a lot?"
"Probably. I mean, the man I'm in love with is still in there somewhere. I think I'll have to be doing that a lot to keep reminding you that you need to try to get your memory back."
He smirked at her as he began walking towards where she had stopped. "What the hell then! Things could be a lot worse than this, and I'm intrigued. I'm in."
Nodding, she grabbed his hands and dragged him down the hall to the nearest stairwell. "Hope the Covenant keeps you in good shape. Because we were talking quite a long time in that hallway. They probably know I'm here."
On cue, there were gunshots from above beginning to fall down upon them. "You know it's not a real date between you and I until someone starts shooting at us," Sydney said as they plastered themselves against the wall to momentarily get out of the way of the bullets.
Together, Sydney and Sark rushed down all thirty-six flights of stairs, dodging ricochet bullets the whole time. When they reached the door leading out into the lobby, Sydney quickly pulled him up against the wall. "We need to get out that door, no matter what. Don't stop."
"Are you scared that I'm lying to you? That I might just shoot you in the back when we get out there?" he whispered into her ear.
The familiarity of his voice so close to her sent shivers down her spine. She tried to shake it off and focus on what she had to do to get them out of the building. "That just makes it all the more fun," she said with a devilish grin. She let go of him and launched herself out into the lobby.
Sark smiled to himself and followed her out. He had never seen Sydney Bristow act this fearless and happy before. Even if she was lying to him about where he had been the past three years, something had definitely changed in her. She was actually fun.
He almost stopped halfway across the lobby as he realized why her behavior was so familiar to him. She was acting just as if he would in the same situation. Whether or not they were actually in love, it suddenly wasn't hard for him to believe that they had spent some amount of time together during his lost time.
When they were a few blocks away from the Tokyo building, Sydney finally slowed down and motioned for him to go into the nearest shop. Smiling at him, she reached up to turn her earpiece on. "Vaughn. I got him. We're heading home. I'll talk to you when we're back in the penthouse."
"Good job, Syd," she heard him say on the other line.
"Do you have Will with you?" Lauren asked.
"Um… actually, it's a long story. But one of you are going to have to go to the back entrance of the Ho Chi Cleaners and tell Will that the mission's over."
"I'm not even going to ask," Vaughn said with a laugh.
Sydney clicked her earpiece off. "Now tell me why you really decided to come with me."
"The Covenant thought that you were important in whatever's coming up. If they really don't have my money, there was no point in me staying and helping them gather information that I could just get and use myself."
"So, you want to use me to get ahead in the spy world?" she said, narrowing her eyes.
"Would you expect anything more of me?"
"Actually, I would have expected more. You're not exactly the same ruthless person you once were."
"Don't tell me that we have a suburban house with a white picket fence and two point five kids and a dog named Fido."
"Do I look like the girl that would have a dog named Fido?" Sydney rolled her eyes and started to walk. Sark jogged a little to catch up to her. "You and I have a Manhattan penthouse which we both work out of. We have a normal life. It's something that we both wanted."
"I don't think I've ever wanted a normal life."
"You did… once." Sydney trailed off as she began to realize how difficult a situation she had been put into. It had taken her so long to get Sark to soften up a little and admit that he loved her. In fact, she had almost died trying to get him to do just that. She was pretty sure that she didn't want to go through all that again.
But in the back of her mine, she realized she would. She would give anything to set her life right.
It was all due to the simple fact that she believed in him. She believed that somehow together they could set things right. She had been willing to give up everything to find him, and now that she had, she wasn't about to accept defeat just because the Covenant toyed with his head a little. She wasn't the kind of person to accept defeat that easily.
She looked over at the man who didn't seem to know her at all. There was so much to tell him about what was between them. The only thing she was regretting was having to tell him that his little sister had been killed. The Sark standing next to her wouldn't be so happy to hear that Lina had been killed to save Sydney's life.
No, she was not looking forward to that at all.