Title: Skeletons in the closet

Summary: Sydney faces her past at SD-6.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Alias related, only the characters you don't know.

Spoiler: 3:17 'The frame' and before, AU after that.

Rating: PG-13

Chapter Fifteen

"It's for the best." Danny whispered to Lauren as Sydney lay on the hotel bed. "She needs professional help and we can't give her that." Lauren looked down at Sydney who seemed to have no idea who she was and sighed.

"But we'll lose her again." She moaned. "I just have her back Danny…" He took Lauren in his arms and held her as she sobbed. Sydney frowned at the action.

"Danny? Is she a friend from college? You never said we were having guests over for dinner." Sydney smiled sweetly at them and Lauren's tears increased.

The next morning Sydney found herself with Danny and Lauren outside a large country home where everyone wore loose white clothes and nurses followed them everywhere.

Danny sat her down in a furnished room where a nurse stood watching them with a fake smile on her features. "Syd, you're not well right now and Lauren and I need you to get better. You're going to stay here for a little while and get better ok?" Sydney looked from Danny to Lauren and shook her head.

"Don't leave me." She cried out and grabbed Lauren's hand. "Don't let him leave me."

Lauren forced back her tears and knelt down beside her. "Sydney you have to be brave. We'll come visit, but you have to get better so we can all be a family again." Lauren kissed her forehead and pulled away from her, letting go of her hand.

"Be brave sweetie." Danny kissed her and left her with the nurse. Sydney looked at the smiling woman and then matched her smile. "Will you be my friend? Mom's supposed to be picking me up, but she's late…"

Four months later Jack sat in his study with a bottle of whisky in his hand and yesterday's clothes on. When Elliot walked through the door he jumped and scowled. "How'd you get in?"

"I learnt from the best. Dixon asked me to come buy and tell you we have a lead on Danny and Lauren, a Covenant minion gave us a deal."

"I remember the last time you came into my study uninvited to talk about Sydney." Elliot nodded and sat down on his desk. She'd went to him the second she'd found out about Sydney being dead and told him about the Julia woman.

"Things have changed since then."

Jack laughed at her statement. "A lot has changed since then, my daughter is insane, my old field agent has taken her place in the CIA and whisky doesn't go as far as it used to."

"I'm doing my job." Elliot objected. "Like you told me to do. When I came to you in tears back at SD-6 because I couldn't stand to be around Sydney you told me I had a job to do first and I had to stay at SD-6 to do that. Above all else the job comes first, that's what you said! I'm just doing what you told me to!"

Jack sighed as the young woman shouted at him. "I know. I know that I'm not the only one who has to deal with Sydney being gone, but I've lost so much in my life, I can't lose my daughter again."

"Weiss and Zac are following up that lead." She went to leave and then paused at the door. "If you can sober yourself up by tomorrow morning then Zac and I are following our own lead, if you want in then come to my apartment at seven. There's a chance we can find Syd, not Lauren and Danny, but Sydney. Going through the appropriate channels will take too long, so we're sneaking in."

Jack met Elliot and Zac at exactly seven the next morning and looked curiously at Elliot as she handed him a white doctor's coat. "You ready doc?" She wore one too while Zac wore all white sweats. He beamed at Jack's curious glance.

"She's finally committing me."

When they arrived at 'Oak Haven Rest Home' they were greeted by a Doctor Manning. "Ah, welcome to Oak Haven, this must be Jonathan?" He shook Zac's hand and led them inside. "So why did you say you were transferring Jonathan here?"

"It's closer for his mother to visit him. She's a frail old thing and desperately wants to be bale to visit him." Elliot explained.

"Well I'll show you around the site and walk you through out practises, so that you're happy for Jonathan to be here and we'll let Jonathan meet some friends huh?"

A nurse led Zac away from Elliot and Zac and into a room full of people in identical white sweats. They sat huddled in groups or solitary by a window or corner. Some of them cowered as he walked by and others sized him up looking for trouble, but he ignored them and the second the nurse left he began to look through them to see if Syd was really there, or if his contact at the institute had been wrong.

When he didn't find her in the 'day room' he snuck out and into a long corridor that had doors on each side leading to patient's rooms. He tried several rooms before he was tapped on the shoulder. "Excuse me, it's rude to walk into other people's rooms." It was a young blonde woman who had confronted him and he smiled politely, turning on his charm.

"I'm sorry. I'm looking for a friend of mine. Sydney Bristow, you don't know her by any chance do you?"

The woman beamed and nodded. "Syd's my friend. We used to be roomies and she always writes to me and sends sweets. She's really cool…"

"Where is she now?" He interrupted.

"She's on the outside. She got better and they let her out."

"Do you have an address, or a way to contact her?" He asked and watched the young woman's features become conflicted.

"I'm not supposed to tell."

"I'm a friend of hers." Zac explained. "And it's real important that I talk to her. I need to know she's ok. So can you tell me how to find her?"

The woman gave him an address that had obviously been memorised and smiled when he gave her the candy bar he had forgotten to eat at breakfast. "Thanks for this."

After running an errand he made his way back to the day room and waited for Elliot and Jack to get him. They came an hour later and told Doctor Manning they would consider the institute.

"What did you get?" Elliot asked as Zac scribbled down the memorized address.

"I got Syd." He beamed. "I checked her file while you two were playing doctor. Her fiancé and friend brought her to the institute four months ago. She was totally burnt out. Her file said she was going through some sort of posttraumatic stress thing and she was resorting to different stages in her life to cope. After a month and a half she made a full recovery and was released." He explained. Jack nodded.

"Project Christmas was used on Sydney, it would have helped her come back from her brake down. That's probably how she came to her senses last time and erased her memory. So where's the address?"

"Um…it's a little further than we can drive." Zac handed the paper to Jack and he scowled. "North West Las Vegas. What is she doing there?"

"Getting as far away from us as possible." Elliot replied. "We'll tell Dixon what we found and take a plane there ASAP."

"If she's sane now, why hasn't she come back?" Zac asked the question the other two were afraid to ask. Why would Sydney run and hide from them if she was her normal self?