Lily and her mother were walking home from school the next afternoon, hand in hand, as was their normal routine. Sydney had always felt uneasy letting her daughter leave school without someone watching over her. It had been years since someone had attempted a kidnapping of a loved one. The paranoia was a bad habit she couldn't seem to break. After recounting the events that occurred throughout the school day, Lily got abnormally quiet.
"What's the matter, honey?" Sydney asked, looking concerned. Her daughter didn't have the easiest time at school and she knew it. "Did you have another run-in with Fiona at school today?"
Lily shook her head. It hadn't been the school bully this time. "I was sitting in class today thinking about Daddy."
She was only thrown off a second by her daughter's words. "You miss him, don't you?"
"Yeah."
She put her hands around her daughter's shoulder to give her a walking hug. "I miss him, too, Lily. We're going to see him today, though, just like I promised. So you'll get to let him know just how much you miss him. It will help a lot, I think."
Lily brightened up a little and smiled at her mother. "Will you tell me a story while we're walking to see Daddy?"
Sydney eyed her daughter suspiciously. "I bet you've been waiting all day to ask me that one, scheming and plotting how to guilt trip me into it. Don't you get tired of hearing the same stories over and over again?"
"No," her daughter answered resolutely. "But I came up with a story in school today that I don't think you ever told me. I want to hear about your first date with Daddy."
Sydney smiled and ushered her daughter over to a bench in the park they were walking through. "You're right. I don't think I ever told you about how your father managed to first get me to go on a date with him. He tricked me, you know..."
Sark walked down the Champs-Elysee with Sydney, not completely oblivious that everyone was staring at the pair of them. "I think we're drawing attention to ourselves," he whispered in his ear. He slipped his hand into hers.
"I think if you want to still be a man tomorrow, you're going to take your hand out of mine," she hissed back.
"No," he said with a defiant smile, gripping her hand as tight as he could without hurting her. "I don't think so, Sydney."
She rolled her eyes. "The object of the mission is to draw some attention to us. Sloane is running that covert operation in one of the other SD cells territories here in Paris. He wants them to see that his two best agents are otherwise busy so they won't figure out what he's up to. So that means you and I need to draw as much attention to us as possible. It doesn't mean we have to convince people that we're romantically involved."
Her heart dropped out as she looked over at him and saw a wicked grin begin to form on his face.
"Daddy and I had the most extraordinary first date. It was like we didn't have a care who saw us or if what we were doing was strange. He took me to one of the most romantic places I could imagine."
"Los Angeles?" Lily said with wide eyes. That was the most magical place she could think of.
Sydney did her best not to laugh. "That's right, darling. He took me into the city, but at first it wasn't a date. He and I were there on business."After a moment, she added, "Bank business," just to make sure they were clear.
"When did it turn into a date?"
"Well, when he grabbed my hand as we were walking down the street and did the most spontaneous thing..."
Sark whirled Sydney in close to his body and started swaying gently to the music provided by a street performer. It was a move right out of a cheesy romantic comedy, but at first she didn't really care. No one had ever done anything like this before for her. It was always romantic moves like this that appeared in her dreams, when she knew no one would criticize her or poke fun at her. She had always wanted someone like this but hadn't even had the nerve to talk about her dream man to Francie.
It was slightly disconcerting that Sark was acting just as she had pictured her dream man. She started to wonder if telepathy and brain monitoring had given him an edge. As their feet moved in small circles, she tried to forget that both of those things were highly possible and try to focus on keeping her opinion of Sark far from that of her dream man.
That moment of concentration was when she realized people were really staring now. She struggled to get away, but the more she tried, the more tightly he held her to him.
"This is all part of the job, Sydney. People are really noticing us now."
"I don't see how SD-10 is going to be convinced that you and I would normally dance in the street together on our night off. We're supposed to be believable."
"Then, we're just going to have to make sure to do this on every mission we go on." Sark dipped her gracefully, and she let out a small laugh.
As they danced in small circles in the middle of the sidewalk, Sydney allowed herself to step out of her mission mode and enjoy what she was doing. With the wind blowing through her hair and the sun setting in the distance, she was starting to realize that if the situation was different, this would be a very romantic thing for Sark to do.
"Your father was a great dancer. I could hear girls whispering about how lucky I was to find such a romantic man. I shrugged it off at the time, but now I realize just how great he was."
"I love Daddy."
"I love him, too." Sydney went quiet for a moment. Hearing Lily shift slightly beside her made her snap back to attention. "But let's get back to the story. So, we were dancing in the street..."
"Now isn't this fun, Agent Bristow?"
"No," she said while he twirled her.
"You know what would make it even more believable?" When she didn't answer, he continued. "If you were to show your true feelings and kiss me."
"No," she said a little more firmly than before.
"I just thought it would be fun. I mean, it's plain to see that you're having fun. Why can't I have fun, too?"
"Because you only seem to have fun when there's a gun in your hand and someone's dying," she said, then quickly added, "And I'm not having fun."
"Liar. Your eyes are sparkling."
She glared at him, wrenched herself out of his grasp, and started walking down the street again. He ran to catch up with her. "What should we do now?" he asked.
"Something that doesn't involve me having to talk to you."
"That's what we were doing back there. You didn't like it." He smirked at her. "And you wouldn't kiss me so that nonverbal activity is out of the running."
"I am asking Sloane for a reassignment when we get back to L.A.," she said without thinking. His face dropped at her words, surprising her. He had actually been thrown off.
"I said some mean things to your father." Sydney found that she couldn't look her daughter in the eye at this part of the story. "Things that I regret now. But you have to remember I didn't know then what a great catch Julian was."
"You used to say a lot of mean things to Dad. Why?" Lily asked honestly.
"I don't know. I never realized it, but he hardly ever said anything mean to me. What he said sometimes hurt me because it was the truth. Your father was always good at telling the truth. The main problem was the truth wasn't usually something I wanted to hear. Or it wasn't something I could handle hearing at the time. Things were always a little delicate in my life." Sydney finally looked at Lily. "But Daddy was never out right mean like I was. I never apologized to him for that."
"I think he knows," Lily said while placing her hand on top of her mother's. "But you can tell him today if it will make you feel better."
"Thank you, Lily."
Sydney sat in silence for a moment, thinking about what Sark's face had looked like when she said she was going to ask for a reassignment. "I don't think I've ever hurt him as much as I did that day..."
She had never before seen Sark falter in the cool exterior he presented to everyone. But it was painfully clear that the idea of her being reassigned was not what he wanted or imagined would ever happen. "Sark?' she said hesitantly after he hadn't said anything for a few moments.
He looked at her once more and started walking without saying a word. She ran to catch up with him. "I thought we had made progress, Bristow," he said softy and rather calmly after they had walked side by side for a few moments.
"What do you mean?"
He stopped to look at her. "In the elevator last week. I thought I had convinced you that you didn't need to be so emotionally reserved with me." She looked at him in confusion. "You don't have to pretend like you're a faithful SD-6 servant or that you don't enjoy my company. There's no need for a facade with me. I know who you are, Sydney. I mean, who you really are. I'm sure there's not many other people you know who could say that. So, for god's sake, just give me a little trust. It's so easy to stop pretending. You don't have to lie about anything when you're with me. Hell, you don't even have to pretend that you're not a natural blonde." He fingered a piece of her hair.
She smiled. "I didn't think of it in that way."
"I figured," he said, letting go of the piece and continuing to walk. "For being such an intelligent woman, you really don't see what's in front of your face sometimes."
She touched her wig lightly, feeling where the strand was warm from his touch. "And what's in front of my face that I don't see?"
Sark looked at her incredulously. "I told you that I wanted you, Sydney. It might not be the smartest decision I've ever made, but I decided that I was tired of playing cat and mouse with you."
"Do you remember telling me about Brian Conner and Tiffany Brown?" Sydney asked her daughter, rather abruptly interrupting the story's natural progression.
"Yes. They fought all the time at the beginning of the school year. And now they're going out."
Sydney smiled at the thought of second graders dating. "Your father and I were like that. We fought all the time as a way to keep from admitting that we loved each other. If we were as young as you are right now, I'm sure he would have pushed me in the mud at recess like Stevie Antoline did to you last month." She smiled at the memory of her daughter walking into the house covered from head to toe in dirt and mud. "And when Daddy tricked me into going on our first date, he called me on that fact."
"How did he trick you anyway, Mommy?" Lily asked.
Sydney reached down and grabbed her daughter's book bag. Without a word, she then stood up and reached her hand out to Lily. After a moment, she said, "I'm going to get to that. Now let's start walking while I tell the story."
"Daddy's waiting, right?"
"Yes. Daddy's waiting..."
"I'm tired of pretending with you," Sark finished, looking at Sydney expectantly.
"I don't know what to say," she whispered honestly.
Sark sighed, realizing that their argument/discussion wasn't going to go anywhere he wanted it to at the moment. He glanced at their surroundings. "There's a restaurant across the street. Let's drop the subject for now and go get dinner."
"Dinner was not in the mission schedule."
"You owe me dinner after crushing my hopes so brutally before," he said, his trademark smirk returning.
She felt a weight being lifted off of her as he seemed to return back to his normal demeanor of cold and brutal honesty mixed with sarcasm. When she nodded in agreement, he put his hand softly on the small of her back and led her across the street. It was an intimate gesture that did not go unnoticed by her.
The first thing that Sydney noticed was this restaurant was way too fancy for them to just walk into and expect a table. She was about to turn to Sark and tell him just that when the maitre d' walked up to them.
"Mr. Sark, it is so good to see you again. And with such a pretty lady."
Sydney looked over at Sark and narrowed his eyes. Sark just shrugged.
"I was surprised when you called us this morning to say you were in town."
"It was last minute."
"Your father arranged it so that we had a really romantic dinner waiting for us at the restaurant. And it was then that he sprung the whole notion of this being a date on me..."
After they had sat down, Sydney took the time to look around and really take in her surroundings. Most of the other people dining were young couples who couldn't care less about their rather loud entrance thanks to the maitre d's obnoxious delight in seeing Sark once more. Everyone else was too wrapped up in each other to notice. She turned back to Sark. "This is a rather romantic place, isn't it?"
"Isn't that the idea when you're on a first date?"
Her eyes widened in shock. "A what?"
"A first date. I figured the only way to get you to go on was to trick you into it." He leaned back in his chair, clearly pleased with himself. "Carpe diem, you know?"
They paused at a red light, waiting for the walk sign to flash on. "Daddy told you that he meant to trick you? Wasn't that kind of dangerous?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I know if I were you, I wouldn't have been too happy at being tricked."
"Well, I wasn't," Sydney admitted. "You can say I was rather furious..."
Sydney glared at Sark. "This is not a date, Sark. I would never agree to go on a date with you. The whole idea of dating you repulses me."
"Oh. So taking advantage of me in an elevator is fine, but actually going out with me in public is not?"
"Do not bring up what happened in the elevator. That was a single, isolated incident that I do not plan on repeating."
"Single, isolated incident?" He took a sip of wine. "Did anyone ever tell you that you don't talk like a normal person, Sydney?"
"Don't try to take the focus off of the fact that you're trying to sucker me into going on a date with you."
The woman dining alone at the table next to them leaned over to talk to Sydney. "I think you've already been suckered."
Sark gave the woman a devilish smile. "Thanks."
Sydney stared back and forth from the two in shock. It wouldn't have surprised her if Sark had hired this woman at an earlier time to help convince her not to cause him physical harm for what he was trying to do.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but you two were speaking rather loudly," the woman said. "And if you don't want this attractive young man, I'll have you know that there are probably plenty of women in this restaurant who would be willing to give up their dates to have one with him, myself included."
Sydney narrowed her eyes. "That won't be necessary." She turned away from the woman and glared at Sark. "Are we going to eat or what, Sark?"
"Was that you being possessive?" he asked.
"Just order," she growled as the waiter came towards the table.
Sydney smiled at her daughter who was playing with a dog that a person had been walking down the street. "Thinking back, I should have known that your father would convince me to go through with the date. He was a smooth talker through and through. Just like you."
Lily stood up and looked shocked. "What's a smooth talker and why am I one?"
"A smooth talker is someone who can use words to get people to do whatever they want. And I recall many a trip to get ice cream at times that were well past your bedtime, young lady."
"You can't say no to ice cream."
"No, you can't." She patted her daughter lightly on the head. "At that point, I thought it was time that your father realized how it felt to be put on the spot..."
Sydney's eyes fell on the maitre d' again. "So how many women have you brought to this little restaurant of love, Sark?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, getting slightly nervous.
"Well, I was just thinking that it seems as if you are a regular here. This isn't the type of restaurant that you stop by on your way out of town to pick up a sandwich. It's too romantic. So I was just wondering how many different women you brought here since you first started coming."
Sark loosened his tie a little. "Not many."
"A number, please," she insisted.
He held out his hand and started counting on his fingers while mumbling names softly to himself. "Four," he said decisively after a moment.
"And I'm sure those four women would be happy that they have been demoted to just a finger representation." She scowled and leaned back in her chair. "This is the Sark I've come to know. The one that counts his conquests on his fingers."
"I never said that I came here on dates."
"Then who were the four women?"
He purposely held up one finger at her dramatically. "One, Katarina Svetlikana. My old partner when I was working with your mother. She and I were the ones that discovered this place." He held up another finger. "Two, Ginny Francisco. She was an Italian businesswoman I was finessing so that I could steal business plans for your mother." Another finger. "Three, Viviane Bordeaux, an old friend of my mother's who had just moved from the south of France into Paris." He extended his pinky finger. "Four, your mother."
Sydney waited for him to explain that one, but he didn't. "So you're saying that I'm the first woman you've brought here for a romantic dinner without wanting something from them as a mission or as a friend?"
He nodded, leaving her speechless.
"What happened then?" Lily asked.
"Then, the subject was dropped, and we ate our meals in peace."She nodded. "So what did you and Daddy do after dinner?"
"Your father took me to..." She paused realizing she was about to say the Tuileries Gardens right outside the Louvre, but that really wouldn't fit in well with the story she was telling Lily. "...MacArthur Park. It was lovely at nighttime."
"Can we go there?" Lily asked.
"We could go this weekend if you wanted."
"Great. So what did you guys do at the park?"
A flash of memory went through Sydney's face. She realized that she couldn't really tell her daughter what had happened. "We walked for a little bit..."
"Why did you bring me here?" Sydney said quietly. She had been staring at Paris illuminated by the moonlight for the past few minutes silently while leaning against a small fence.
"Because, unlike the restaurant, our incessant bickering will not bother anyone out here."
The corner of her mouth raised in a smile slightly. "We do bicker a lot, don't we?"
"Like an old married couple." Sark sat down on the park bench that was behind them. "Come. Sit down with me."
Sighing, she complied and took a seat next to him. She didn't say a word as he took her hand into his. They sat in silence for about ten minutes, neither one knowing what exactly to say to another.
Finally, Sydney turned to him. She watched him staring out across the gardens. He looked uncharacteristically peaceful and... and... happy. She had never realized that she had thought he looked discontent before.
Without really thinking, she turned his head gently to face her and gave him a light kiss. She could see the shock and surprise register in his eyes before she pulled back. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For this night. I've almost forgotten about how messy my life is." She paused and took a deep breath. "You're right."
"Well, it took you long enough to admit it." He paused, unconsciously rubbing where her lips had touched his. "What am I right about?"
"You are someone I can actually open up to and be myself around, strangely enough." She took another deep breath, wondering to herself why she found it so easy to tell the truth and speak her heart to him. "You were also right on another point. There is something between us. And I didn't want to admit it." She turned away, his intense stare making her a little uncomfortable. "That doesn't mean I love you, though."
"No, you love Michael Vaughn."
Sydney could tell that he wasn't trying to mock here or twist her words in any way. It was just another one of his simple statements of fact. "I might."
"I've always supported the principle that you can love more than one person at one time."
"That's debatable."
He tried another approach as he sensed her closing herself off from him again. "Why wouldn't you admit it?" he asked gently. "It's not like I would have teased you."
"My life hasn't exactly been easy, you know. I really don't think I'm capable of trusting anyone anymore."
"You can trust Michael Vaughn," Sark pointed out, kind of bitterly. He didn't mean to keep bring the conversation around to the topic of her handler, but it didn't seem like he and Sydney could have an honest talk about her love life without including Michael Vaughn. He hated that.
"He hasn't done anything to prove he would betray me. At least not yet."
"That's rather cynical."
"It's the truth," she said softly. She could feel the tears forming in her eyes, and she cursed herself for showing weakness. "In my life, all I'm used to is disappointment and betrayal."
Sark wiped a tear off of her cheek. "I promise that you don't have to worry about that with me. I don't want to fit into the mold you've formed for the men in your life."
"You don't," she whispered.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It was meant as one."
They sat in a comfortable silence as Sydney tried to calm her tears.
"Why are you acting so nice?" she said as he wiped the last escaped tear away. "I don't understand you."
"I don't understand myself, either. I've never been as crazy for a woman as I am for you, Sydney. You make my life very difficult, you know. I wasn't supposed to fall in love when I started working for SD-6."
Sydney stared at him in shock. He had not just said what she thought he had. It wasn't possible.
"Your father told me that he loved me that night."
"On the first date?" Lily asked. "Isn't that a little early?"
"A little bit. But our courtship wasn't a normal one. Our jobs didn't really let us have that much time to date."
"Did your heart jump when he said he loved you?"
"No, it didn't jump. It stopped dead in its tracks..."
"What did you just say?" she whispered. She had just told him that she didn't love him, and yet somehow he found the courage, or stupidity, depending on one's opinion of the situation, to say that he loved her.
"I love you, Sydney. I can't help it. And I can't change it." He stood up and offered her a hand. "Now let's get going. We need to be noticed by at least half a dozen more people before the night is up."
She took his hand without a word. They had almost reached the edge of the Tuileries when the weight of his words finally sunk in. He loved her.
Sydney paused for a second in her storytelling, recalling her thoughts at the time of the tale.
Throughout her whole life, those were the hardest words to get people to say when it came to her. Her father barely ever said them. Her mother was "dead" for most of her life. She hadn't even known she had a sister until it was too late. It had been extremely hard for her to accept.
"Mommy?" Lily said hesitantly. "Are you okay? You don't have to tell me the story if it makes you sad."
"No, honey. It was a very happy time for me, both then and now..."
Love was not a thing tossed around lighting in her opinion.
"What?" Sark asked, realizing she had been staring at him for the past minute.
Without a word, she lunged at him and pushed him against a tree, showering kisses onto his face. He stood in shock, feeling the hardness of the tree trunk behind him and the softness of her hands as she slowly reached them up beneath his shirt and raked her nails across his chest. "You need to stop doing that whole attacking thing," he said when she allowed him a second to breathe.
"You like it," she whispered in his ear throatily, causing him to shiver.
The second she let her focus down, he turned the scales on her, pinning her up against the tree. Almost unconsciously, she let herself be picked up and wrapped her legs around his waist. He could feel her hands on his belt buckle, loosening it.
"I don't know if I can say no this time," Sark warned her. When she didn't say anything but continued to unzip his pants, he figured that was a green light. This was the moment for which he had been waiting for what seemed like as long as he could remember.
"Mommy?" Lily asked, hesitantly again.
"Hmm?" Sydney said, realizing she hadn't been speaking out loud for awhile.
"You drifted off on me again. Didn't you get enough sleep last night?"
"I think I did." Sydney smiled at her daughter and grabbed Lily's hand again, turning them down a gravel path. "Where did I leave off?""You told me that you let Daddy kiss you up against a tree."
"Okay. Well, this is something you're going to have to trust me about for at least another five years or so. But first kisses can tell you a lot about the future of a relationship."
"Didn't you already kiss him? In the elevator?"
"That didn't count since we weren't on an official date."
"Okay," Lily said, trying to commit everything her mother was saying to memory for future use. "So, how was your first kiss with Daddy?"
"Magical. Unreal. Perfect."
"And that's why he became my daddy?""That's why he became your daddy. I knew once I had kissed him that night, there was no one else who could compare..."
Sydney tried to smooth her clothes back to an acceptable level.
"Well, that was interesting," Sark said, rebuckling his pants. "I never expected that one.""It's safe to say that if anyone saw us, and I'm thinking not because we haven't been arrested, but if someone did, they would definitely know that you and I weren't on any mission tonight."
"Unless it was a mission of love," Sark joked.Sydney smacked him hard and started walking away.
"I'm sorry," Sark said as he ran to catch up with her.
"For a second there, I was actually enjoying being in your presence.""It seemed longer than a second to me. Granted, I was a little taken aback so I wasn't up to my normal level of performance." This time, he managed to dodge her blow. After it seemed she had settled down and wouldn't be throwing any more fists at him, he dared to ask, "Where does this leave us?"
"Your father wanted to know how I felt about him."
"Did you tell him you loved him?" Lily asked innocently.
"Of course not. We had only been on one date..."
"I don't know, but I think I lied to you before," Sydney answered.
"About what?" he asked.
"I think when you're not being a jerk, I might be falling in love with you. That's not often," she added in warning.
"But it's still something," he said with a smile. "And it's enough for now."
They walked along the Paris road in silence, for once just happy to be in the other's company.
"We're here," Sydney said, walking across the grass. She placed her hand onto the cool granite that the stone was made of and absentmindedly traced the letters spelling out Julian Sark. "Say hello to your father."
Lily knelt in front of the grave. "Hi, Daddy."