Sydney paused right in front of the door to Will's apartment complex. It had taken them forever to get through the traffic of the city and out into Brooklyn. Now that they were finally here, she found that moving her feet to take the next step was a little harder than she thought.

"Why are you stopping?" Sark asked.

"I'm scared," she answered truthfully. "In a few minutes, I'm going to find out which one of my best friends has been working against me, maybe even trying to get me killed." She looked up at him and held out her hand. "I know you're new at this. But would you mind?"

He gave her a genuine smile and put his hand into her outstretched palm. "I might be cold-hearted most of the time, Sydney, but I'm not that horrible."

"I never thought you were," she answered, squeezing his hand as she pushed open the front door and began to walk up the stairs to the fifth floor.

They walked hand in hand up all five flights of stairs without a word. Sydney finally dropped his hand to knock on Will's apartment door. The door creaked open with the pressure of her knock.

"Amy?" she called out hesitantly. "Are you here? The door was open."

There was no answer. "Why wouldn't she be here already?" Sydney asked Sark. "Her plane should have landed at least two hours before ours."

"I think she was here," Sark said, pointing to the kitchen counter.

Sydney looked closer and saw Amy's keys to the apartment just sitting there. The bright pink ball of fuzz some hopeless person marketed as a key chain was unmistakable. Sydney had given it to her for her birthday five years ago. "Do you think she left?"

"Maybe this was a trap and there's a bomb," Sark said, half kidding.

"That's not funny. This situation is incredibly serious. I don't know what could have made her leave this apartment without seeing me first." Sydney brushed past him into the hall. Sark watched as she paused in front of Will's open bedroom door and all the color drained from her face. She looked like she was about to faint.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he started to make his way towards her. He had no time to brace himself as she let loose a blood-curdling yell and ran into the bedroom. Rounding the corner, he saw what had made her scream.

Amy Tippin was lying on the bed in a pool of blood, and she didn't seem to be moving. There were noticeable stab wounds in her torso. He watched from the doorway as Sydney checked her pulse. "She's still alive," Sydney said.

Sark snapped out of his small trance and pulled out his cell phone to call 911. "Yes. I need an ambulance at the corner of E. 32nd and Tilden. My friend had multiple stab wounds." Sydney heard him pause as the operator asked him a question. "I don't know what happened. We were supposed to be meeting her… yes, my girlfriend and I… we were supposed to meet her here. When we got here the door was open and she was lying on her bed." Another pause. "No, this is her brother's apartment." Pause. "No, I will not calm down." Pause. "Listen. I don't need to stay on the line. Just send a bloody ambulance now!"

"Are they coming?" Sydney asked as she lightly pushed Amy's blood-soaked hair out of her face. She leaned down and gave Amy a few quick breathes. As she pumped her chest, Sydney added, "Because I don't know how long she can stay with us."

"We're right down the street from University Hospital, Syd. If they're not here within a minute, I'll find another way to get us there."

She nodded, continuing CPR. She only broke her concentration once to look up at Sark and smile as she heard the sirens in the distance begin to get louder. Between breathes, she said, "I guess your forceful words worked on the operator."

"It's a gift," he said with a smirk.

The paramedics were in the apartment within two minutes, and they had Amy strapped onto a gurney and already receiving blood once she had started breathing faintly on her own.

"We're coming with her," Sydney demanded as the paramedics wheeled her out of the apartment.

"Only one of you can fit into that ambulance."

"You don't want to mess with me right now," Sydney said. "Both of us, and your patient, are CIA. You can get in a lot of trouble if you don't let us come with you. You don't want that, and I don't want that." Both paramedics looked a little frightened as they searched for a way to tell her no without costing them their jobs, all while wheeling Amy into the elevator.

"Let's go," she said to Sark without paying any more attention to what the paramedics wanted.

As a second thought, Sark grabbed Amy's keys off of the counter and ran out the door after them.

Sydney sat in the hospital waiting rooms chairs, playing with the ends of her sleeves. She had been sitting in the same position for over an hour now just trying to fathom what had gone on. Once again, her presence had almost killed another of her friends. "She still might die," she thought.

Pushing that horrible thought out of her head, she tried to focus on remembering every detail of Will's apartment. There might have been a clue as to who broke in and attacked Amy. There might have been something she overlooked.

"Oh my god!" Sydney screamed suddenly.

Sark was jolted out of the sleep he had just fallen into. "What's going on, Syd?"

"I didn't call Will. How am I supposed to explain to him what happened? He's going to blame me. Blame me and then kill me."

"Settle down," he hissed, noticing everyone's eyes were on them. Plus, getting woken up when he didn't want to be always made him grumpy. "I called Will Tippin right when we got here. You were too busy trying to figure out if Amy was going to be all right. Don't ask me why I did it, but I called him. He should be here any minute now."

"That was an extremely kind thing to do, Julian. Thank you."

"Just don't expect me to do it again. I'm not this pansy person you seem to think I was."

"Still not convinced that you've spent the past two years with me?"

"No. I mean, parts of the story are extremely convincing. Like the part about you falling madly in love me and not being able to live without me."

"Cocky bastard," she mumbled.

"I know. I am, aren't I?" he said smugly.

She couldn't help but grin. "You know, the last time you were in a hospital was when your sister almost killed me."

"WHAT?" Sark screamed. Now he was the one drawing the whole waiting room's attention to them. "How do you know about my sister?"

"I helped you extract her from working with Taylor Cummings. You and I single-handedly took down his organization with her help. Or so we thought." Sydney realized that there was no way around it anymore. She was going to have to tell him about how he killed his sister to save her. "You're not going to like what I'm about to tell you. In fact, I'm pretty sure it will do wonders in convincing you that I've been lying the whole time. But it is the truth."

Sark held up his hand to stop her from babbling. "One thing at time. Where is my sister now?"

She hesitated for a moment, but in seeing his pained look, she spit it out. "She's dead, Julian."

He got up and punched the wall forcefully, leaving a nice dent the size of his hand. Rubbing his sore knuckles, he turned back to Sydney. "Who was the bastard that did it? I swear to god, if it's the last thing I do, I'll kill him."

"It was you," Sydney said quietly without looking him in the eyes.

"You want me to believe that I killed my own sister."

"Lina betrayed you. She betrayed me. You thought that she was working with Cummings to prove to you that she was capable of being a great agent. Instead, she was working with Cummings because she wanted the power. When she saw an opportunity to do him a favor, she took it. Cummings had tried to recruit me, but I refused. That made him quite mad. Lina agreed to kill me."

Sark put his hands in his head. "This is too much, Sydney."

"I know." She put her hand on his shoulder, and, surprisingly, he didn't shake it off. She was about to try to explain to him the motives behind his stabbing but was interrupted by a familiar voice shouting her name. "Will," she said, motioning him over.

"What happened? Where's Amy?"

"She's in surgery right now. Will, I don't know what exactly happened. She had some important information for me. I was supposed to meet her at your apartment. When I got there, this whole thing had already happened. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he quickly said as he grabbed a doctor who had been walking passed. "Amy Tippin. I want to know how she's doing, and I want to know now."

The doctor nodded and started to walk away. Will grabbed the collar of his lab coat. "That's Amy. A-M-Y. Tippin. T-I-P-P-E-N."

"Let him go," Sydney said as she put her hands on Will's. When the doctor's feet were back on the floor, she apologized for Will, sighting stress as the reason.

"I can't take this, Syd," Will said as he sat down in the chair she had previously been sitting in. For the first time, he looked at the man beside him and let out a scream.

"People are going to think we have escaped from the insane asylum if we keep screaming repeatedly like this," Sark said.

"What the hell is he doing here?"

"I found him in Tokyo. We were on our flight home when I got the call from Amy. There wasn't time to take him home. Besides that, he's my partner. He has just as much a right to hear what Amy had to say as I do."

"What did Amy know that was so important?"

Sydney hesitated, wondering if she could really tell him the truth. There was still a mole out there somewhere that she needed to find. "I'm not exactly sure. She said it had something to do with Sark. It sounded serious, so I told her I'd meet her immediately."

Will nodded. He was about to say something else when the same doctor he had just assaulted came over to stand in front of them. Will stood up along with Sydney and Sark. "Your sister is out of surgery," the doctor informed them.

"Is she going to be all right?" Will asked.

"That remains to be seen. The surgery was able to stop the internal bleeding, but Amy is still not conscious. We're not sure if she'll be able to recover from the stress of the wounds and the operation. There'll be a more definitive answer in the next couple days."

Will nodded, and the doctor gave him a weak smile before walking away.

"It could have been worse," Sark said quietly.

"Do you want me to kick your ass?" Will hissed, getting ready to land another punch.

"Stop it," Sydney warned.

Sark smirked at the man he had previously tortured. "I just meant that she could have been too badly injured for the surgery to do any good. At least they were able to repair the damage as much as possible."

"Wow," Will said with a shocked look. "That was almost as if you had… feelings…"

"Don't let the word get out," Sark insisted.

Will turned to Sydney. "Why don't you get out of here? You've had a long day, and I know you could use some rest. I'm here to watch out for Amy. I'll let you know if anything happens."

"Will!" shouted a young, attractive man as he ran into the waiting room. "What's going on?"

"Jason, this is Sydney Bristow and Julian Sark. They're colleagues of Amy's at the State Department. Syd, Sark, this is Jason Harrington, Amy's boyfriend."

"Pleased to meet you," Sydney said as she shook his hand. "Julian and I were just leaving. It seems now with both of you here that Amy is in capable hands. But don't think I won't come back with a horrible wraith if I hear you're slacking on your watching-over duties."

"You can count on me," Jason said with a smile. "It's nice to meet you, Sydney. Amy talks about you all the time."

"I'm very fond of her, too," Sydney said. "Goodbye, Will."

"Bye, Syd. I'll call you if there's any news." He turned to Sark. "Sark."

"Will."

Sydney rolled her eyes and grabbed Sark by the hand to pull him away from Will and out of the hospital. Some things never changed. The Sark she knew and the one in front of her at this moment were both on not so good terms with Will.

"But I guess that's a consequence when you chose to torture someone," she thought with a laugh. "Where to now?" she asked out loud.

"I'd like to see this home you keep raving about," Sark said.