Thanks for all the feedback guys! You rock! I have plans for all of this, and I'll update pretty soon…

It was anything but a normal day at the Joint Task Forces center, 2 weeks after the Alliance takedown. I had sprained my ankle on a mission 3 days before; and then, Kendall called a meeting, asking me, Vaughn, Dixon, Marshall, and my father all to attend. He informed us that we had acquired new intel about Sloane's whereabouts. Because it was such a big deal, Kendall decided to send 3 agents: Vaughn, Dixon, and my father. I, naturally, had wanted to be included, but with my injury, I had to sit this one out. Kendall offered to allow me to be on comms, and I had to settle for that.

Things had been going smoothly: Dixon confirmed that Sloane was where we thought he was; Vaughn had all the equipment set up and ready to go; and my father was just waiting for the signal from Kendall. Vaughn's voice suddenly came through.

"Syd, this is huge, and it might not all go as planned. You know that, and I know that. So before we move in, there's something I've been wanting to tell you, and it can't wait any longer. Syd, I-" he was cut off by Kendall.

"Now, this is your chance! Go!" I glared at Kendall; he didn't notice. I didn't think he'd heard any of what Vaughn said, but I hadn't gotten to hear enough. I sighed, determined to talk to Vaughn as soon as they got back. Until then, I had to make sure he GOT back. I directed the three to go left up ahead, as indicated on my maps. They did so. After a few more minutes of twists and turns, they arrived at their destination.

"Are you sure it's safe to enter?" My father asked.

"Our sources said that Sloane went there on his own. He has no guards, no Sark, nothing." I didn't like the sound of that. Apparently, neither did my father.

"Your sources? How reliable are these sources?"

"They've never been wrong, Agent Bristow, so break down the damn door!" After a brief discussion, which they obviously masked, as Kendall and I couldn't hear it, Dixon spoke.

"We're about to enter." After that came the sound of wood splintering and the three of them bursting through, yelling for Sloane to drop his weapon or they would shoot. There was more garbled yelling, the sound of a gun being fired, and then… silence. Nothing at all came through.

"Agent Bristow? Agent Dixon? Agent Vaughn? Answer me damn it!" I shot him another glare.

"Vaughn? Dad, Dixon? What's happening?" Not for the first time, I cursed my injured ankle, knowing I should be there for whatever was happening. After 10 more minutes of silence, Kendall yanked his earpiece out and threw it at the computer. I sat there for another 15 minutes, before tossing mine and chasing after Kendall.

"What are you going to do about this?"

"At the moment, Agent Bristow, there's nothing I can do."

"What the hell do you mean by that? We have to do something! Sloane could be torturing them right now, for all we know!"

"For all we know, Agent Bristow. That is not enough to go on. I need to know exactly what happened out there before I can authorize any kind of extraction. It could just be comm interference, in which case my sending in a team would jeopardize everything."

"It's not just comm interference, and you know it."

"I know nothing, Agent Bristow, that's the problem. And until we know something, we do nothing." Fighting the overwhelming urge to slap the unapologetic look off of his face, I limped out and drove home, glad my right foot was not the injured one.

Walking into the house, I found Francie balanced on a ladder, changing a light bulb. She looked shocked to see me home so early.

"Sydney… if I knew you were going to be home at this time, I would have made some dinner."

"It's all right Francie, I'm just going to take a bath and go to bed." She gave me a look.

"At 5 pm?"

"Did I mention that it's going to be a really long bath?" She gave me a fairly sympathetic look.

"Bad day at work?"

"Only about the worst ever." She nodded to me.

"Go enjoy your bath. You want me to make you anything?" I shook my head and started towards my room. A few minutes later I was soaking in the hot water, trying to decide what to do next. The one thing I kept coming to was my mother. I needed to go see her again. She might not know anything, but she would still help. And I needed to talk to this 'source' that Kendall had gotten the info from. With plans formulating in my head, I relaxed to some extent, allowing my thoughts to drift to Vaughn and my father, wondering if I could live without them.


I'm amusing myself greatly with this one, so I imagine I'll do more work on it tonight... thanks for all the feedback!