Sydney waved to her mother as the elevator doors slid shut. She had taken the news that she was going to be a grandmother rather well. And she had provided some much needed comfort and optimism.

When Sydney had first imagined telling her that she was pregnant, she thought her mother would fly off the handle saying how completely inopportune her timing was. That sure was what Sydney kept telling herself. Couldn't she have picked a better time to conceive a child than when the father is currently suffering from intentional amnesia?

She knew that she would have to tell him soon, but it just didn't seem right to saddle him with another responsibility when he still wasn't firm in his decision to stay with her. Scaring him away was the last thing she wanted to do.

Turning back, she noticed that Sark was standing in the doorway going into the hall staring at her. "What?" she asked.

"This is all hard for me, Sydney. I've told you that a million times. I don't know if I can be the man you used to know."

"I don't care what man you are, as long as you stay with me," she said honestly. "And that was a little random."

"I can't take the way you look at me."

She looked up at him with a confused look on his face. "I thought you were stronger than that."

"That's what scares me. I thought I was, too. You make me uneasy in your willingness to take what you can get. I might not be as you remember me, but you're certainly not the same as I remember you. Everything I do to hurt you or make you mad, you just shrug as if it was nothing. Do you know how infuriating that is?"

"I can imagine."

"Anyway, I wanted to at least thank you for giving me a place to clear my head and come up with what my next move is. Even if you're really not helping in the whole let-me-make-my-own-decision sense."

She smiled at him. "Do you have a point?"

"Yes, I do. Stop trying to rush me when I'm giving a speech." He winked at her. "I just wanted to let you know that while you were talking with your mother, I cooked up a little surprise for tonight. Sort of a get you to shut up so I can have some peace kind of thing. I got the idea from some of the old photo albums you keep in the bookcase over there."

"What did you do?" she asked, suspiciously.

"Put on a nice dress, Sydney. I'm taking you dancing."

She dropped her jaw in surprise. This was unexpected. "You haven't taken me dancing in a long time, Julian."

"If you don't want to go, just say the word," he teased.

"Of course I want to go. Just give me one hour, and I'll be ready." And with that, she raced of the room, giddy with glee.

He chuckled to himself as he thought, "She always loved surprises." His laughing stopped as he realized that was something he shouldn't have known if she was lying to him about the past few years. Yet another reason why he should believe her.

"I hope you remember how great a dancer you used to be," she joked as she did one last check in the mirror. Deciding that everything was perfect, she walked out to meet him in the front room.

"You look spectacular," he said with a smile, leaning in to kiss her neck lightly.

Sydney smiled at him from across the room and unconsciously smoothed down her dress. It always made her blush when he looked at her with that instinctive hunger in his eyes. She should have known that would be the reaction this dress would get. She had pulled it out of the back of her closet where it had been shoved because it was a little too daring for her normal tastes.

It was bright red and had a low V neck that cut almost to her belly button. The skirt was knee length but had two slits that went up high on her thigh. Coupled with a pair of three-inch stilettos, she knew that her outfit was bordering on being killer.

Sark moved across the room to grab her hand and led her out of the penthouse. She was pleased to feel him inhale slightly as his head passed her hair. Another unconscious action that proved the Sark she had fallen in love with was still in there somewhere.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"In a dress like that, I should probably just lock you up in a room. You're going to be breaking some hearts tonight, Agent Bristow." He led her into the elevator.

"It's in the job description."

Sydney let him take control of the night, relishing in the fact that it almost seemed as if things were back to normal. Sure, he still didn't fully believe her when she said that they had been hopelessly in love with one another. But she had to pick her battles, didn't she?

The drive to their destination was not that long, and Sydney was happy to see that Sark had unconsciously picked one of her favorite places to go. She knew that he had in all actually just selected it because it was one of the first listings in the phone book, but she was still happy to be at Arigo's.

"In the mood for a little salsa, huh?" she said with a wink as he opened her car door for her.

"No. I just wanted to see you dressed in that outfit. And I don't think it would have been quite as appropriate to wear it ballroom dancing."

"Good call."

They walked right past the line of people waiting to get in, and the bouncer lifted the rope partition.

"Nice to see you, Ms. Bristow, Mr. Sark. It's been a long time."

"It's good to see you, too, Jerome," Sydney answered, knowing that Sark didn't remember the man. "I hope the wife and kids are doing okay."

"Never been better. Thanks."

A huge wave of smelling of heat and something tangy hit them as they entered the club. This was definitely the place to be tonight. There didn't seem to be a couple who wasn't on the dance floor.

"You know they'll expect us to do some showy number like in the movies. They always do," Sydney whispered in his ear.

"Really?"

"No! That stuff really does only happen in the movies. I've never seen any of these people before in my life. And we don't like to draw attention to us. So keep all the showboaty moves to yourself."

She grabbed his hand and led him onto the dance floor. She closed her eyes and slowly began to move her hips to the beat that was pulsing through the floor. Sark's hands touched her waist lightly and pulled her in close. It was good to be near him again.

They got lost in the emotion of the music and seemingly forgot about the whole world. They forgot about the issues they were still trying to work out between each other, about the fact that Sydney's friend had almost been murdered earlier that day, about the simple truth that they were always a target. They just danced.

Sydney was getting a little fatigued after an hour of dancing. She kissed Sark lightly on the lips and murmured something about getting something to drink.

He knew he should follow her to the bar and make sure that no guy came up and tried to take advantage of her sexy dress. But he figured that she might want to cool down a little without him. And he was afraid that if he did follow her, they might just end up in a bathroom somewhere to get rid of some of their pent-up frustration and attraction.

Laughing to himself, he worked his way out of the crowd. He couldn't imagine that Sydney would ever be the type of girl to have sex with someone in a bathroom. It just didn't seem likely.

The music died down as the deejay switched from one song to another. Sark could hear a couple of men arguing from across the club about some woman, but he paid no attention to them. There were always some drunken guys fighting over the stupidest things no matter what kind of club you went to at what time of the night.

However, when he heard a gunshot, his attention was grabbed.

Looking up, he expected to see security pouncing on the man, but there was no one to be seen. Except for Sydney. Of course, she happened to be in the middle of it. And currently, she was kicking and punching both of the men who had been arguing.

The first gun shot had grabbed his attention. The second one made him go pale and almost scream.

Because the second one caused Sydney to drop to the ground, and he could no longer see her anymore over the heads of the crowd.

He pushed his way through to get to Sydney as fast as he could. When he reached her side, he saw that she was sitting up and clutching her side.

"Are you all right? What happened?"

"Those two assholes were arguing about which one could buy me a drink. One of them had a gun. That made the discussion a little more tense."

"I know. I saw most of that from across the club, including you beating up two men who are twice your size." He helped her up and saw her wince. "Did you get shot?"

"I think a bullet grazed my side," she said.

Sark scooped her up into his arms despite her protests. "Looks like our little night of fun is over." Glancing around, he locked sights with one of the men who had been fighting over Sydney's attention. He looked incredibly familiar.

It took Sark a second to place the face, but he eventually realized where he had seen the man before. He was a Covenant employee. Sark had seen him around the Tokyo facility once or twice in his few weeks there.

"I bet the other guy was Covenant, too," he thought. "No need to tell Sydney. She'll just get upset and want to seek immediate revenge. And that was more of my game anyway."

He sighed as they stepped out into the cool night air. "Don't start complaining about me carrying you. I think if you tried to walk, you might pass out. Then you would just be dead weight. At least this way I can have a little light conversation on our walk back to the car."

She smiled and nestled her head into the crook of his neck. "Thank you, Julian."

"You're welcome, Sydney. Now don't fall asleep on me. We still need to bandage your wound."

"Okay," she said, right before losing consciousness.

He groaned. "I thought I said I didn't want to carry dead weight. Damnit!" He noticed that people on the street were staring at him. "Blind date gone bad. Who knew she was narcoleptic?"

The people still looked confused. "Great. The people don't even understand my sense of humor, Syd. This is why you shouldn't keep getting shot. It kills all the fun."

Sighing again, he shifted her slightly in his arms and prepared to walk the block and a half to where they had parked the car. He just hoped that he didn't run into anyone they knew, especially Jack or Irina. He really didn't want to explain how he had let Sydney get shot again.

This girl was a bonafide bullet magnet.