Chapter Four

"This is your house?" she said in awe. She had pretty much ignored Sark during the whole journey there, but she couldn't help but ask.

"Yes," Sark replied.

"Does the queen live here too?" Julia muttered under her breath. The place was huge – like a palace. Hence the question about the British royal family.

"No, she's not really my type. I don't go for older women," Sark half joked.

Julia was far from amused. She couldn't see why he was making small talk with her – he was supposed to be holding her captive, not making a new friend! Ok, so she was the one who'd started the conversation, and yes, he was intriguing. Not to mention the fact that he kept trying to talk to her as if she were a normal person. That had unsettled her at first, but she had to admit – she kind of liked it.

"It's just me," Sark added after his attempt at a joke had failed.

"And you need such a big house because......." she trailed off.

"I like having a lot of space," Sark filled in simply.

"Apparently so much space that you could provide shelter for the entire population of India," Julia retorted.

Sark shrugged, unabashed. "You never know when unexpected visitors may show up." He looked at her knowingly. She presumed that he was talking about her.

"Visitors, or people you've kidnapped?" she asked, smiling in spite of herself.

Sark motioned for her to follow him. "For your information, I did not kidnap you. Kidnapping requires a certain amount of resistance on your part. You came willingly."

"Willingly, my ass!" Julia snorted as the pair made their way through a maze of hallways. "You think I had a choice in the matter?"

"Probably not," Sark admitted after a moments pause. "I must say, you're certainly a lot more talkative now than you were on the plane. What, don't you like flying?"

That shut her up. No more small talk. "I like flying, ok?" she said, the phrase coming out a lot more harshly than she'd intended.

Sark looked visibly confused at her sudden change in demeanor, but he covered it up very quickly. Damn, this guy was good. Julia almost felt sorry for him. He must have thought that she had a terrible mood swing problem.

They finally reached their destination. It was a room with a beautiful antique four poster bed in the middle of the room and a matching wardrobe and bedside table.

She frowned slightly. "What -"

"This is where you'll be staying," Sark interrupted before she could finish.

Say what? She stepped into the room a little cautiously. Definitely a change of lifestyle.

"Wow," she murmured. She loved antique furniture. It was such a contrast to the cold stone greys of Manticore. Snapping out of a trance, she looked at her captor almost suspiciously. What was he trying to prove? No one treated her this nicely without an ulterior motive behind their actions. She quickly reminded herself that, no matter how different he was to the people at Manticore, she still had to be wary of him.

"You don't like it?"

"No! I mean, yeah, it's great. I like it." She forced a smile.

"Good. Now let me set down the ground rules. You can wander around the house and the garden as you please, but you are not to escape. If you try to escape, there are snipers surrounding the border of this property who have been ordered to shoot you. Understand?"

Julia nodded quickly. Snipers – now that sounded more like what she had been expecting. "I can do whatever I like?"

"Within reason. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. If you need anything, come find me," Sark said curtly, and left.

She could tell that she'd pissed him off, but quite frankly, she didn't care. She had just wanted him to go away, so she could get her head around the events of the past few days.

Julia lay back on the bed – wow, silk sheets – and sighed. Not knowing what was going to happen to her was driving her crazy. And she didn't believe Sark for a second when he'd told her that he had no idea what was going on. How did he expect her to just wait around?

And as for Sark, he unnerved her. Every time she spoke to him she started to let her guard down. It had happened twice already, and she couldn't afford for that to happen – especially since she was unsure of what he was up to. But why it was happening at all confused her the most. She never let her guard down, not ever, and most of all, she never trusted anyone. She'd learnt to do that the hard way after her brothers and sisters had betrayed her.

Right, she decided, I'm not talking to him unless I have to.

Julia sat up suddenly, noticing something on the ceiling. Bloody Sark. She narrowed her eyes and then stormed out of the room.

She found Sark eventually; sitting at what she assumed was the dining room table, looking at something on his laptop.

"There are cameras in my room!" she burst out indignantly, telling herself that this was indeed a situation in which she 'had' to talk to him.

Sark looked up and smirked at her. "I wondered how long it would take you to realise that. That was a lot faster than I expected."

"Well, what happened to the 'I'm-giving-you-the-benefit-of-the-doubt' speech a few minutes ago?" she demanded, the cocky look on his infuriating her even more.

"You don't think that I trust you completely, do you? I still don't know what you're capable of. And besides, after that little outing of yours back in Washington, I've decided that I better be keeping an eye on you."

"And how exactly am I supposed to get changed?"

Sark stared at her innocently. "I won't look, honestly." But the suggestive tone of his voice told her that he most definitely wanted to.

Julia rolled her eyes. "There better not be any cameras in the bathroom!" she yelled over her shoulder as she walked out.

"Dixon! Director Dixon!" Marshall came charging through the CIA Operations Center, tripping over a few items of furniture on the way. "Oooh, sorry. Excuse me," he apologized profusely to an agent that he'd run into. "Dixon!"

"What is it, Marshall?" Dixon asked the bumbling man, halting his conversation with Vaughn.

"I think I've found a way to find the X5s," Marshall said breathlessly, handing Dixon some photos. "I used some software to age the X5s in the photographs, to give as an idea of what they might look like as adults."

Dixon flipped through the photographs. Attractive twenty-something X5s stared back up at him. "Impressive."

"Thanks. I didn't know what kinda hairstyles the X5s had so stole a few hairstyles from some of my favourite movies. See that one? That's from Miss Congeniality, when Gracie got into the top 5. And might I add, Sandra Bullock is hot in that movie -"

"Hey, I heard that!" Carrie yelled from her desk a few metres away.

Marshall went pale. "Oh, uh, well she's nothing compared to you, honey......." he stammered.

"So where do we go from here?" Vaughn asked before Marshall wet himself.

"I suggest we run a search on the computer and see if we get any hits on these pictures," Dixon began. "But we don't know what their aliases are, which doesn't help."

"Actually......" Vaughn frowned, remembering something. "Their profiles had aliases on them. X5-599's profile said 'Zack'. I thought they weren't supposed to have names."

"If they didn't want to be found, wouldn't they change their names?" Marshall asked.

"It's worth a shot," Dixon said. "How long do you think this will take?"

"Well, we've got to assume that these guys would be extremely good at covering their tracks. They're spies, right? But give me a day, and I'll tell you if I get anything," Marshall told him.

Not having experienced this sort of freedom before, Julia didn't quite know what to do with herself. Sark was busy doing something – work, she assumed – so that left her to amuse herself. She wandered aimlessly around the entire house, admiring it, and at the same time unconsciously memorizing the hallways so that she wouldn't get lost. Finally, Julia made her way into the library. It was the largest personal collection of books she'd ever seen.

She drew in a deep breath and the musty smell of paper and wood filled her nose. It was oddly comforting. Walking over to a tall shelf, she inspected the vast amount of books, finally picking up one that she thought would be interesting.

"Alice in Wonderland," she read aloud. She wasn't entirely sure why this one sounded so appealing to her – it looked like a children's book – but she curled up in a chair anyway and started reading, finding herself mesmerized.

Sark switched off his computer and stretched. He'd had enough of work for one day. Before getting up he glanced at the clock. 3am. 475 was probably asleep. He hadn't heard from her since her outburst about the cameras in her room.

Speaking of that, he'd discovered that she was rather infuriating herself. Not to mention maddeningly unpredictable. It was almost as if she had split personalities.

Well, one thing was for sure – she was definitely interesting.

Sark began to make his way towards his bedroom, only to realise that he wasn't tired. He turned around and headed to the library instead, a desire to read a good book overtaking him.

He didn't expect to find 475 there, asleep on the couch with a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Her whole body was tense, as if to protect herself from something that wasn't there.

He decided to just leave her there, and went to choose a book.

"Wait," a small, obviously distressed voice called out to him.

Sark whirled around, slightly startled. She was still asleep. And having a nightmare, no doubt.

"Don't go, Zack," 475 cried softly in her sleep. "Come back, don't leave me here. Max, wait for me."

Unsure of what to do, Sark stood there awkwardly until she fell silent again, wondering who Zack and Max were.

Julia hadn't realised that she'd fallen asleep until someone prodded her awake, calling, "Miss? Miss?"

"What......." she mumbled groggily, lifting her eyes up to a woman in her sixties. The first question that popped into her head was – who is this?

"Mr. Sark wanted to know if you want any breakfast," the woman asked politely with an Italian accent.

Julia finally remembered where she was. Sark's house. "Oh. What time is it?"

"8 o'clock."

"Right." She'd been asleep for that long? "Yeah, breakfast would be good."

"Great. It'll be ready soon." She flashed a warm, almost motherly smile in Julia's direction, which she returned half-heartily.

Freakishly nice, Julia thought. She got off the couch, wincing slightly at her stiff limbs and went to have a shower. About ten minutes later – she was low maintenance – she emerged, carefully avoiding the security cameras in the adjoining bedroom, and went to breakfast.

Sark was already there, his plate piled high with pancakes, maple syrup, and.......ice cream.

Julia shook her head in disbelief. "You sure like to eat healthy," she said sarcastically.

"Good morning to you too," he replied without looking up. He motioned towards her own plate of pancakes which was on the table near him. "It's really nice. You should try it."

Julia sat down, and looked at the ice cream skeptically. "Er – no thanks."

"Suit yourself."

They both fell silent, too preoccupied with their breakfast to pay attention to one another.

The pancakes were delicious. Julia noted that if there was anything good about being taken away from everything she knew by some guy she didn't know, it was definitely the pancakes. Actually, the whole situation in general was much better than being at Manticore. She couldn't get used to though – it wasn't going to last.

She glanced at Sark, getting a good look at him for the first time. Calling him a guy she didn't know was an understatement, but at least he wasn't that bad looking. Hmm, he was kinda hot, even.

"Will you stop staring at me?" Sark snapped finally.

Julia ignored him. "What are you, exactly?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

Sark gave her a strange look. "A male human being, as far as I'm aware."

"That's not what I meant! I mean, do you work for Manticore, or what?"

"No. I'm a Covenant agent. I thought you knew that," Sark replied, puzzled.

"No, I didn't. Manticore prefers us to be uninformed. You know, do-what- you're-told-you-don't-need-to-know-the-details, that sort of thing. It's bloody annoying," she told him. Wait, why was she even telling him this?

"I know exactly what you mean. The Covenant never tells me anything. Sometimes I can't help but feel as if they're -" Sark's phone rang. He looked somewhat relieved when it happened, as if it had just prevented him from almost revealing something too personal.

Julia knew the feeling.

"Yes?" Sark said into the phone.

Julia's enhanced hearing picked up the conversation between Sark and the person on the other end clearly.

"They're ready to see the X5 now," said the female voice. Julia recognised her as Sark's little mistress from Washington.

"Right. What are the terms?" Was it just her or did Sark sound a little disappointed?

"They'll meet you at the warehouse at Brighton St. Tomorrow, 1am."

"OK." He hung up and turned to her. "Look's like the Covenant wants to meet with you."