A/N: Julia will seem a bit out of character at first. But there's an explanation for it, I promise. Just don't think I've gone mad. : )

Chapter Seven

He had no idea where the sudden need to reassure her had come from. But Sark felt uncharacteristically protective of Julia as they walked out of the ice cream store with their purchases in hand.

She seemed fine though, showing no signs of the lost and vulnerable woman she had been only moments before. The woman that had somehow managed to make him mutate into a kind, altruistic fool. It had been slightly unsettling, and he didn't intend on it ever happening again. He wasn't one for deep and meaningful conversations.

Honestly, Julia was going to be the end of him.

"It's really hot here," Julia muttered irritably, fanning herself with her hand.

"It's the middle of winter and you're eating ice cream," Sark pointed out incredulously. "How can you possibly be hot?"

"I don't know!" she said, shrugging off her jacket whilst still holding her ice cream.

Sark started to think about how she would most likely catch pneumonia as a result of the bitterly cold air around them, until he caught sight of the smooth expanse of skin on Julia's bare shoulders and arms which had been previously covered up by her jacket.

He quickly looked away before his thoughts were tempted to go where they shouldn't.

Julia made a small noise of satisfaction, stating, "That's a bit better."

"Aren't you cold?" Sark said, frowning.

"No. It's just kinda warm......"

She did look a little flushed.

"Perhaps you're coming down with something," Sark offered. Yeah, like pneumonia.

"No, no, I'm fine," she replied dismissively.

Well, he wasn't. Sark realised that he was starting to notice things about Julia that he hadn't noticed before. Like the perfect curves of her hips and the smooth, sexy way they moved while she walked. Not that he hadn't seen how attractive she was before - any man would admit that she was achingly beautiful. But today it was different; there seemed to be something about her that was simply oozing seductiveness.

Or maybe there was just something in the ice cream that was making him insane. He shouldn't have been thinking such things about a woman he was supposed to be holding captive. And he should have been able to keep his eyes off her, but so far he had been unsuccessful.

Well, there's nothing wrong with being attracted to her, is there, Sark argued with himself.

He really was insane.

"You know, if I didn't know better, Sark," Julia began mock-thoughtfully, "I'd think you were actually worried about me."

"Well it's a good thing that you do know better," Sark retorted. "Because you're the last thing I'd worry about."

Liar.

Julia arched an eyebrow. "Well we all know that's not true."

His gaze was challenging. "Oh really?"

"Yes. You want me. Admit it." She advanced on him, poking him in the chest.

Sark, although slightly shocked at her rather unusual behaviour, looked back at her calmly. "I don't want you any more than I want to get married to a donkey. And for the record, I really do not want to get married to a donkey."

What a load of crap. Of course you want her.

She backed off. And just when Sark was about to rub his victory in, she said, "If that's the case, then stop ogling me like it's the first time you've seen a naked woman. You've been doing it for the last fifteen minutes and it's really starting to piss me off." She smiled devilishly before turning on her heel and walking off, leaving him stunned.

Shit.

He recovered and jogged to catch up with her. Sassy, sharp-tongued bitch; that's what Julia was. And it only made him want her more.

"Now that was just mean," Sark called out to her accusingly, pretending to be upset. "And here I was thinking you were flirting with me. I'm crushed."

"What are you whining about?" Julia called back, annoyed. She waited for him to catch up and positioned herself dangerously close to him.

Sark swallowed thickly, feeling the warmth radiate from her body. "Uh – nothing, really -"

"Good. Because I was flirting with you," she whispered, teasingly kissing the corner of his mouth.

Sark certainly wouldn't have objected if the kiss had lasted a bit longer, but she jerked away so quickly that he didn't have time to register what had just happened.

"Oh my gosh!" she gasped, clamping her hand over her mouth. "Did I – I just – ew!" Julia shoved him away from her.

Sark glared at her, partly angry and partly disappointed. "I wasn't aware that I was that repulsive," he said hotly. What was wrong with this woman?

She didn't answer. Instead, a look of dread came over her face. "Ohhh, no."

"What?" Sark demanded.

Julia shook her head ruefully, looking slightly panicked. "Nothing. Come on, let's get out of here." Not waiting for an answer, she practically ran towards the direction of his house.

Sark stared after her in utter confusion.

It was going to be a long day.

A masked man leaned over her, his smile menacing.

"We know you tried to change your identity; build up a new life for yourself as Sydney Bristow. But you can never be normal. You can never escape from us, no matter how hard you try. You were made to by a spy, Julia Thorne."

Sydney's eyes flew open. Vaughn sat across from her in the plane, reading over some files.

She stretched, remembering that they had successfully captured the X5, who had her hands and feet bound to a chair a few rows in front of them, just in case she suddenly woke up from the extremely strong tranquilizer that Sydney had shot her with.

Two days after he had used the computer to age the mug shots of the X5s, Marshall, being the genius that he was, had found one of them in Seattle.

Her name was Max Guevera, and she matched the profile of X5-452, a.k.a Max. Sydney had found it strange that X5-452 hadn't changed her alias, nor had she made any attempt to cover up her tracks. However, it made their job so much easier and they were one step closer to their target.

Sydney and Vaughn had been ordered to take her into custody under the assumption that she was still part of the Covenant. It didn't matter that she'd been free for over thirteen years.

So Sydney had become Nicole, a new employee at the X5s workplace - Jam Pony.

The X5 had completely fallen for the shy-and-defenseless-little-girl-in- need-of-protection act. Which, in a way, made Sydney feel bad – it meant that the X5 could have genuinely been a nice person.

She had been surprised at how normal the X5 had seemed, and how well she fitted in with the rest of the, well, normal people. No one would have ever suspected that she was a genetically engineered super soldier bred to kill. Which was what made the X5 so good, Sydney supposed. But did she really become a normal person or was she just a very good actress? Was she really still a cold-blooded Covenant agent at heart?

"Syd, we're here," Vaughn said, nudging her.

Sydney hadn't even realised that the plane had landed back in LA. "Oh, right." She got up, just as a few CIA Operatives were picking up the still unconscious X5.

"We can start interrogating her as soon as she wakes up," Vaughn told her.

Sydney nodded, staring at him for a moment. Trying to read what was going on in his mind.

He looked slightly uncomfortable. "What?"

"Vaughn -" she started uncertainly, unable to put her concern into words.

Sydney had noticed that he had been acting very strangely since they'd left Manticore – avoiding her, mostly, but when they were around each other he'd give her guilty looks, like he was keeping something from her. In fact, Weiss, Marshall and Dixon were also acting in a similar fashion. Marshall had been the most obvious about it by spilling drinks, knocking over things and jumping nervously whenever she spoke to him. The only person not acting as if she had leprosy was her dad.

What is going on? That's what she wanted to say.

"Nothing," she sighed, telling herself to speak to him about it later – even though she had a feeling that he would deny that anything was wrong.

Max lifted her head groggily, blurry shapes dancing before her half open eyes. She groaned and tried to move, but then realised that she was hand- cuffed to a rather solid looking chair.

Great. She'd been captured. By who, she did not know, but she had a feeling that it wasn't Ames White that was responsible this time.

Was that a good or bad thing?

As her head finally started to clear, the door to the small, dark room opened. Two people walked in – the woman that had shot her and an unfamiliar man.

"Ah, my dear friend Nicole. I can't believe you would do this to me," Max drawled, plastering a hurt expression on her face. "And just when we were getting along so well."

"Don't take it too personally," 'Nicole' said, sitting down opposite her. The man took a seat next to the woman like some sort of over protective body guard.

A million questions formed in Max's head, but she refrained from asking. She knew that she was the disadvantaged one here – she had no idea where she was or what was going to happen to her – but she didn't want to give these bastards the satisfaction of knowing that they were in control.

Max preferred being the controller, not the controllee ( if that was even a word ), and that was the way it was going to be right here, right now.

"I can tell that you don't have many friends," Max commented lightly. "If this is the way you treat them. Meet friend, shoot friend, kidnap said friend and tie them to a chair -"

"Look," the woman interrupted curtly. "We're not here for a chat. I'm sure we've both got more important places to be, so let's get this over and done with, alright?"

"Get what over and done with?" Max said, shifting in her chair.

"We need to ask you a few questions," the man spoke up for the first time.

"I'm not telling you anything until you tell me who you are and what the hell's going on," she snapped in reply.

The pair looked at each other questioningly, as if silently trying to ask the other whether or not they should disclose such information.

"Sydney -" the man warned, as if he already knew what she was going to do.

Sydney. So that's what her name was.

"Vaughn." Sydney gave him a pointed look before saying, "We're CIA. We've been trying to track you down. It seems that you might have some important information that we need."

Max managed to keep a stoic expression on her face despite the fact that she was panicking ever so slightly. The CIA. Logan had been right. Maybe they were interested in Manticore.

How was she ever going to get out of this one?

"The CIA," Max echoed. "Huh. So what did I do? I don't suppose delivering packages is considered treason, is it?"

"You didn't do anything. At least as far as the CIA is aware. But being part of the Covenant would be considered treason in our books," Vaughn told her.

"The what?" Max blurted out, genuinely confused. She had expected them to bombard her with questions about Manticore, and she had planned on acting innocent until she thought of another plan – but the Covenant? Uh, sorry, no idea what that was.

Sydney and Vaughn didn't seem to buy it, though. Great. Just when she really didn't have any idea what they were talking about.

"Don't play dumb," Sydney said in a deadly tone of voice. "We know you're an X5, Max. One of the twelve that escaped from Manticore thirteen years ago."

Now they were on the right track, but that wasn't, under any circumstances, a good thing. How did they find out that she was an X5? Wasn't Manticore supposed to be a top secret organisation?

Max raised her eyebrows. "Are you guys on drugs?"

"What?" Sydney and Vaughn said together.

"Manticore? The Covenant? X5?" Max asked innocently. "You really need to tell me what you're talking about. Or at least make up your minds about what you're trying to accuse me of."

"You can't deny it. We saw you at Manticore with our own eyes," Vaughn pressed, as if that would make her talk.

Max pretended to look completely clueless. "I'm telling you, you've got the wrong girl."

"Vaughn, Bristow!" a voice barked over the intercom. "We need you back here."

Sydney fixed Max with a look told her that she wasn't going to get off this easily in the future. "We're not finished here."

"Oh, ya think?" Max shot back sarcastically. She'd already decided that she much preferred the shy Nicole over the determined Sydney. Sydney was getting on her nerves. Despite that, though, she could tell that Sydney was a very good agent - judging by the way she had tricked her, and a strong woman. Max found herself admiring her, and, again it somehow reminded her of someone she once knew.

She was about to dismiss the feeling when suddenly it clicked. She knew who that Sydney reminded her of.

Before she could stop herself, Max whispered, "Julia?"

A/N: Hey guys, hope you like it. Thanks for the reviews, keep 'em coming!