Sydney set Lily down on the floor. "I distinctly remember telling you that we could go to the beach today. Why don't you go get ready?"
Lily smiled at her mother. "You have to promise something."
"What now?" she asked, feigning annoyance.
"I don't want to go to the same beach that Uncle Will took us to."
"No? Then what beach do you want us to go?"
"The one where you married Daddy."
"Lily. That beach is over a two-hour drive." Seeing the disappointed look on her daughter's face, she almost lost it. "I guess it's a good thing that we both got up so early."
Her daughter squealed in delight and ran out of the room. Knowing that it usually took her daughter hours and hours to get ready, Sydney stretched out on her bed, finally letting her eyes shut. They popped back open as the doorbell rang. "Who the hell is here at this early hour?" she grumbled.
Next she heard Lily's feet pad across the hall and down the stairs. "Don't open it if it's a stranger."
"I know, Mommy," Lily yelled up the stairs.
A minute later, she heard Will's voice in her doorway. "That is one excited little girl you have."
"I'm taking her to the beach where I got married," Sydney said without opening her eyes. "What the hell are you doing here, Will?"
"You're the one that called me at four in the morning. I put off coming over here for three hours. I think that was a pretty good feat."
"I'm fine. Go home. Let me sleep." Sydney was happy to hear Will begin to move but groaned when she felt the bed shift under his weight. "My bed is not your home."
"God I wish it was."
Sydney smiled and snuggled in close to her best friend. "Thanks for coming over."
"Not a problem. Did you know that Lily is running her own bath right now?"
"I taught her to be self-sufficient. It comes in handy."
"How'd the story writing go?"
"Good. I almost lost it when I had to write down Nadia's admission that she killed Sark, but then, you know that. That was what made me break down and call you."
"I figured as much." Will yawned. "Which is why I'm here. I thought it might help you to tell me what exactly happened the day that Sark was killed. Thought it might help clear your head and move on."
"I don't want to move on," Sydney said quietly.
"I thought you were over this, Syd. You know it's unhealthy to dwell on it."
She sat up and pointed over to her nightstand. "Do you see what that is? Those are flowers I found on my doorstep the night you brought Lily and I back from the beach. Do you know what kind they are?"
Will sat up and stared at the flowers for a moment. "Those are lotus flowers."
"And do you know what that means?"
"I'm not sure."
"Someone left those as a message to me. But I can't decide what the message is."
"Well, what could it be?"
"It could mean that Nadia's still around somewhere. That I didn't finish what I started three years ago." Sydney put her head in her hands. "But it could also mean that Sark's out there alive somewhere and he's trying to let me know not to give up hope." She paused. "I want that to be true so much."
"I know you do. But he died in front of your eyes, Syd." When she got a strange look on her face, he added, "Didn't he?"
"Not exactly…"
Sark and Sydney had decided that a little bit of fresh air would be good for Lily. She had been crying non-stop since they brought her home from the doctor's that afternoon. Plus, every once in a while, they both got slightly claustrophobic of the house and life they built together. People like them had a hard time adjusting to normalcy.
"I never dreamed that I would ever see those brilliant blue eyes on another person," Sydney said as she look down at where her daughter slept in her stroller.
"Genetics is a funny thing," Sark said with a laugh.
"So is the fact that I think you and I have become your Kodak family. I'm sure we look perfect to passersby."
"Sydney, it's eleven o'clock at night. There are no passersby."
"And isn't that how we like it?" She pulled him into a searing kiss. "What say we have a little reenacting of our first date?"
"You want me to take advantage of you against a tree?" She bit her lip and nodded. "I didn't realize you enjoyed it so much the first time around."
"I enjoy it every time around."
Will looked over at her, a knowing grin on his face. "You sound like you were happy."
"I was extremely happy once. I'm still happy in a way. I love Lily. She's my heart and soul."
"But you still miss your husband?"
"Every day, every hour, every minute…"
They walked a few miles in the happy, comfortable silence that had become the norm between them. As much as Sydney liked to joke about it, they had almost become the picture perfect family. And probably for the first time in either one of their lives, they were content.
"It's funny how I'm no longer jumpy when we go out at night," Sark said, breaking the hush.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, one would think my spy training would never really fade, that I would always be a little paranoid about any situation I am put in. But I'm not. At least, not anymore."
"Me, too," Sydney said with a smile at her husband. "It took me a while, but I think I've finally left that life behind. And I think the absence of paranoia might be because we're happy. I don't think you or I were happy before we started our life together."
"I agree." Sark leaned down and touched his daughter's nose lightly. "And she is just an added bonus."
Sydney was about to tease Sark about how much he had become a softie these days when her ears picked up an odd noise from the alley they had just passed. "Did you hear that?"
"You can't just leave me hanging like that," Will said, turning to face his best friend when she paused in her story.
"I don't want to do this," Sydney said. "I shouldn't be dredging up these feelings. Everyone keeps telling me to put them behind me. Maybe I should take their advice and do that."
"I think you should keep telling the story."
"You would," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "You always enjoyed watching me in pain."
"That's a lie."
"But it was fun to say." Sydney paused as her ears picked up on something. "Do you still hear the water running?"
"Yes, your daughter is safe down the hall, taking a bath. You were just at the part where you thought you heard a noise in an alley…"
"I thought you said you weren't paranoid anymore," Sark kidded her.
"I'm not trying to be funny. I thought I heard the sound of a gun's safety being released."
"Must be flashbacks from the old days."
Sydney grasped the baby stroller's handles tightly and began to turn it back around in the direction they had come from. "I'm being serious, Julian. This isn't some flashback to the way things were once. I heard something in that alley. I don't think it's safe to be out here anymore. Let's go home."
"Your instincts have never been wrong in the past. I've learned to trust them. All right. If you're that unnerved, we'll go home."
They only made it twenty feet before gun shots and violent shouts erupted from the alley in question. Sydney swore she overheard something about turf lines being crossed and protecting one's position. By instinct alone, Sark pushed his wife and daughter up against the nearest building to keep them out of danger. Keeping them protected was the only thing on his mind. It was the only thing that mattered to him now.
"It seems we've stumbled into the bad part of town," Sark said, his underlying excitement not too well hidden. He may be willing to give up his life to protect them, but he still felt a twinge of fond memories.
"You shouldn't be so happy. It's not just you and I running around town," Sydney scolded as she lifted Lily out of the stroller. She paused and looked at the scene playing out slightly in front of them in confusion for a brief second.
Sark took her words to heart and got serious. First, he pushed her through the unlocked doors of the building they had been leaning up against. Once they were out of earshot of the men shouting outside in the alley, she turned to him, "Something's wrong with the scene out there."
"What was wrong?" Will asked.
"The men were shouting about turf lines being crossed. I knew for a fact that Sark and I hadn't stumbled into a major gang activity area. In fact, we were far from it. That was why we choose the neighborhood to live in that we did. It was as safe as you could get."
"But weren't you out for a walk? You could have walked a little too far away from home without realizing it."
"Not possible. Not Sark and I. Not when it came to the matter of Lily's safety."
"I still don't get how that was so odd. Things can be carried over from the bad part of town to the good parts. I report about it every day for the paper."
"Whatever was happening outside had nothing to do with feuding gangs. I was sure of that. And I also had a nasty feeling that it had everything to do with Lily."
"You were scared about the Rambaldi prophecy."
"I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole prophecy came back to bite me in the ass. My life had been going so well. It was about time something screwed it up. I just didn't realize how bad it was about to get…"
"We need to get out of here now," Sark said, once he realized what Sydney was insinuating.
"And how are we supposed to do that? We're stuck in a building that we have never been in before. The men we heard outside know we're in here, and they're probably watching the doors at this very moment. So, we can't go out that way. But we need to get out of this building as soon as possible."
"Impossible situations are our forte," Sark said without much thought. He turned to Sydney. "But you have a feeling that this is where they wanted us to go, don't you?"
"I haven't had one of my instinctual feelings like this since I left the CIA. They're what kept me from dying on numerous missions. In fact, they're probably the only reason I beat you on so many countless occasions. So, I've learned over the years not to doubt them, Julian. And right now, I'm getting a feeling that if we don't get out of this building as soon as possible, something bad is going to happen."
Sark didn't answer. He just grabbed his wife's wrist, being careful not to jostle the young girl in her arms, and pulled her along the hallway while searching for an alternative exit for them to use. "There has to be a back way out."
"I pulled him to a stop after what seemed like miles and miles of hallway. We were going nowhere…"
"I think that was our only way out."
"We can't stop here," Sark said, continuing to pull on her. "Give me Lily if you're getting tired."
"I'm not," Sydney said. She couldn't let go of her motherly instinct to protect her daughter. "Who do you think is doing this?"
"It could be anyone we crossed in the past. You and I both know that the list of our enemies is practically endless. We always knew there would come a day when our old life interrupted the new one we built."
"But I don't want that to happen."
"It's not something we can control. Go through there." Sark pointed to a door.
When Sydney opened it, she realized that it was a stairwell. "Where do you think this takes us?"
"Up or down."
"Now is not the time to be sarcastic," she scolded, only half serious.
"I'm always sarcastic."
"After we entered that stairwell, we both didn't speak a word to each other. I think we were both racking our brains to try to figure out what exactly was going on and how we could get out of another impossible situation."
"Did you ever think it might have just been paranoia? That maybe no one was coming after you?"
"I would have chalked it all up to paranoia, except every once in a while Sark or I would hear a noise like someone was following us. We knew that there was something drastically wrong with the situation."
"This whole thing seems like a horribly bad horror movie that you see at three o'clock in the morning."
"I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't lived it. There was someone following us. They didn't want us to escape that building. It was almost as if they were stalling for time."
"They were stalling, weren't that?"
"Yes, they were stalling for their boss to arrive. She had gotten tangled up in a prior appointment with her father…"
There was a horrible tug in the bottom of Sydney's stomach as Sark stopped in his tracks. "What's wrong? We have to keep going if we're going to make it."
"It all makes sense," Sark mumbled as he turned to her. "It all makes sense, Syd."
"What makes sense?" she said, holding Lily a little tighter to her breast. Sark was scaring her.
"Everything. Being lured here, the timing, it seeming like whoever is out there is stalling, us not being able to find an exit. It all makes sense."
"Have you ever wondered what our lives would be like if Sark were still in them?" Sydney asked abruptly.
"I can't say that I have," Will said honestly.
"I think about it every day. Would I have had the strength to kill my sister if she hadn't taken something so dear to me away? If she hadn't admitted to killing Sark that day, would I have been able to make myself so cold-hearted that I could murder my own flesh and blood?"
"Sydney. Thoughts like that are going to drive you to insanity."
She laughed. "I know. I don't let myself dwell on them too much."
"That's good to hear." Will sighed and leaned back onto the bed. "So, what do you think would have happened if Nadia hadn't killed him that day?"
"I think things would have been considerably different. For starters, I think Nadia's suspicions that Sark was the meaning of my whole life would have been right."
"That's impossible. Rambaldi predicted that your first born would play that role in the prophecy."
"No, he never really pinned down who the person or thing would be. I think that the only reason that it was Lily was because Sark was dead. With him out of my life, she was the only thing I had. If Nadia hadn't been impatient, if she had managed to wait until Lily was four years old, then killing Sark would have kept me from killing her. It would have made the idea of a fight to the death between me and her obsolete."
"There's one thing wrong with that theory. The confrontation between you and Nadia happened on Lily's fourth birthday. If she wasn't your life's meaning, it wouldn't have happened that day."
"Exactly. It wasn't supposed to happen that day. It was supposed to happen a lot sooner. The fourth anniversary of my marriage to Julian, to be precise." Sydney smiled weakly. "I've had a lot of time to think this out, Will. I know I'm right. Nadia and I were supposed to have a fight to death, and I think it was going to be over Sark."
"You and your sister were going to kill one another over Julian Sark? That doesn't seem likely."
"She was going to fall in love with him," Sydney said simply.
"What?" Will screamed.
She shushed him. "The water might still be running, but need I remind you I have an impressionable daughter within hearing distance."
"Sorry," he apologized, looking sheepish.
"No. It's quite all right. It's a natural reaction."
"But how are you so sure that Nadia was supposed to fall in love with Sark?"
"It's the only thing that would make sense. Nadia and I never had a perfect sisterly relationship, but it wasn't so horrible that we hated each other. We missed the crucial years when a strong bond could have been formed. I was still trying to figure out who she was as a person when I was forced to kill her. I think that the only thing that could have driven us to such an extreme point is a man."
"And that man was Sark?"
"Nadia would have kept a constant watch on my life. She would have desperately wanted to know what the answer to the Rambaldi riddle was. Eventually, I believe she would have developed a fascination with my husband that would bridge into what she thought was love."
"She was going to try to take him away by force. And that was the reason you killed her."
"I'm fiercely protective of the things that are good in my life. I won't let anyone take that away from me."
"And rightfully so, Syd. Every person has an innate right to protect the things they cherish."
"That was the last right that Sark exerted," Sydney said, the sadness apparent in her voice. "He was trying to protect me. He was trying to warn me…"
"It was her all along. She's been playing both of us for fools," Sark mumbled. He looked Sydney in the eyes. "But we know now."
"I don't know what you're trying to tell me," Sydney said frustrated. "I don't know."
There was a small whiz by her ear. She noticed Sark stiffen slightly, and she saw pain flash across his face. Looking down, she caught sight of a small red patch that was spreading slightly across the white of Sark's shirt. "What is that?" she asked hesitantly.
He looked at her in confusion and sorrow. Without a word, he crumpled to the ground.
"No. No. No. No. No." She just kept repeating the same word over and over as she sat down on the ground, looking at her husband as the energy slowly drained from his body. "Get up, you stupid bastard. We have to keep moving if we're going to get out of here."
"I don't know how he did," Sydney said. She looked over at Will, and he saw the tears gleaming in her eyes. "Somehow he gathered up the will to stand."
"I think you gave him a few good things worth trying for."
She smiled. "Thank you."
"What happened next?"
"We didn't get very far…"
Sark braced himself against the side of the wall. "The exit we came in through has to be unguarded by now. She sent those men here to kill me, and they've done their job."
"You're not dead."
"Not yet," he said, wincing in pain. "But I'm slowing you down, Sydney."
"What do you expect me to do? Just leave you behind and make a run for it?"
"Things would be a lot easier if I knew you would do just that."
"And things would also have been a lot easier if I wasn't born a Bristow and a Derevko. We can't all get what we want. I'm not leaving you."
She saw him grimace in pain as he righted himself again. "Fine. Go through there." He pointed through a nearby doorway.
Knowing she had won their small argument, she didn't hesitate to follow him command. She took a few steps through the doorway but turned immediately when she realized that Sark wasn't following her. "Come on. We need to hurry if we're going to get out of here." She started moving a few steps again.
"Sydney," Sark said weakly.
She turned back to face him and was frightened to see the way he appeared. He wasn't going to make it much farther.
With his last bit of energy, he reached up and slammed his hand hard into a panel on the wall. A glass panel slid in front of the doorway, effectively cutting him off from her. Letting out a sigh, he used the wall to slide down off of his feet. He looked intently at Sydney. "I love you. I want you to always know that."
"What have you done?" she asked, placing her hand lightly on the glass barrier. "What have you done?"
"And I will always find you," he whispered as his eyes slid shut.
She stared in horror as she watched his breathing slow to a near standstill. He was dying, and she couldn't get to him. The anger and frustration welled up inside of her finally burst out. "I'm not leaving you behind," she screamed. "I refuse to leave you behind."
"The screaming woke up Lily," Sydney explained. "I guess you can say that was the exact moment when she took over my life's meaning. Her screams snapped me back to reality." She shook her head as Will reached out to wipe away her tears. "I was so stupid. I gave up hope."
"You left."
"I left."
The two best friends sat in silence. There wasn't much else to say.
"I'm ready," Lily said from the doorway.
Sydney said up with a start and tried to wipe the noticeable tears out of her eyes. "Okay, baby. Uncle Will and I were just finishing."
"Is something wrong?" she asked innocently.
"No," Will said, standing up. "Everything's just fine. Your mommy and I were just talking about the old days. We both were getting a little sentimental. Tell you what. You run downstairs and whip up some of your famous bowls of cereal, and we can all have breakfast together before you leave for the beach."
"The beach where Mommy and Daddy got married," Lily corrected.
"Right." Contented, Lily left Will and her mother alone again.
"So why'd you get rid of the squirt?" Sydney asked as she started to fix her hair in the mirror.
"Because you still have one thing to tell me. What do you think those flowers mean?"
"I have no idea."
"But you hope…" he prodded.
"I hope that Sark was telling me the truth when he said he would always find me."
"But you thought he was dead for almost seven years, Syd. How can he maybe be alive all of the sudden? You saw him die."
"And they recovered his body from the rubble of the building after it had been burnt down. I should have known if my sister was behind it all, the thoroughness wasn't that out of the ordinary." Sydney sighed. "But they also recovered my body from the fire in the apartment I shared with Francie. I wasn't dead."
Will nodded and stood up. "That's a good enough answer for now. We better get downstairs before your little demon spawn gets Corn Pops and milk all over the counter."
They went downstairs, and Sydney was happened to see her daughter had not gotten into any sort of trouble. Breakfast went by without a hitch with her trying her best not to think about the two hardest days of her life that had both been dredged up in the past twelve hours. Will let himself out as Sydney was loading her daughter into her SUV.
"Why don't you nap, sweetheart, while I drive down? We don't want you crashing in the middle of the beach. I don't think I have enough energy to drag you home."
Lily laughed. "Whatever you say, Mommy."
Sydney winked at her daughter and pulled out of the driveway.
She had a lot to think about during the two-hour drive to the beach she had visited since the day Sark had died. It was just too painful to see it and remember how great her life could have been. But because her daughter wanted to, she was going to have to face her fears. It was time.
In the back of her mind, she ran through the possibility that her husband hadn't died that day seven years ago. It was quite possible that someone had set up his death, but she couldn't figure out why.
"Maybe I was wrong about the Rambaldi timetable," she said, working a few things out by saying them out loud. "Maybe Nadia was already in love with my husband by the time Lily was born. Maybe she stole him like the Covenant stole me. He might be out there somewhere, brainwashed. But I can't be running around the world searching for him. I have our daughter to think about." She growled in frustration. "And he might not even be out there."
Sighing, she tried to clear her mind and think of less troubling things, at least for the next few hours. "We're here," she said loudly, waking up Lily.
Lily yawned and smiled at her mother. "Yay!" she said with a childlike glee.
Sydney got out of the car and opened the rear passenger door to let her daughter out. "So, what prompted you to want to come all the way out here, kid? I'm dying to know."
"It was something Ray Lopez said to me on the playground a few days ago."
She smiled. Ray was the grocery clerk who ran a small cart/shop on the edge of the neighborhood park. He did Sydney a favor a few times a week by watching Lily while she played to give Sydney a break. "What did Ray say?"
"He said he was talking to a man who was buying fruit the other day. Ray said the man kept looking at me and when he asked what was the matter, the man said I reminded him of his daughter. He hadn't seen her in seven years."
"And this prompted you to ask me to take you here? I don't understand."
"I wasn't done 'splaining yet," Lily scolded. "The man was telling Ray about all the romantic things he did with his wife when they were together. Ray was saying how inonnic-"
"Ironic," Sydney corrected.
"-ironic it was that the man had also gotten married on the same beach you and Daddy did. That got me thinking that I had never seen it for myself."
Sydney grabbed Lily's hand as they started walking across the sand and stone. "Sometimes you talk like a grown-up. It worries me."
Lily smiled up at her mother. "I love you, Mommy."
"I love you, too, sweetie."
"And I love Daddy, too."
"I think he knows that wherever he is."
Sydney began to lay out the blankets she had packed in with their stuff. She had only gotten one large one down on the sand before a voice interrupted her.
"Excuse me, miss?"
She straightened up to see a young teenager looking at her expectantly. "Yes?"
"I'm supposed to give you these." He held out a bouquet of lotus flowers.
"Who the hell are you?" Sydney spit out as she hesitantly took the flowers out of his hand.
"Don't get mad at me, lady. That man over there paid me twenty bucks to come over, hand those to you, and point him out."
She looked over at where the young man was pointing. The flowers fell slowly to the ground.
"Who's the man, Mommy?" Lily said, taking Sydney's hand.
Sydney took a deep breath and blinked back her tears. "That's your daddy. He's finally come home, Lily."
THE END