Note: This is the third in a trilogy that started with Silence and then continued with Lie to Me. It takes place 3 years before Silence. (You'll see what I mean soon enough ;-o).

For any that finished Lie to Me and have been waiting for this final story in the trilogy, I apologize for the delay. I figured out the hard way not to start publishing a story until it was fully written (considering there was a gap of literal years during Lie to Me) so just know that my posting any part of this now means that it's fully finished and I promise to have it fully posted in the next few days or so, so welcome back!

For any who are finding this trilogy for the first time, know that you could theoretically read this fic without reading the other two parts but why do that?! Plus the first 2 stories are pretty short. So please, go on now and check those 2 out before reading this one. Mmm k, thanks! :-0)

And lastly, I have to say that I recognize that I picked a crappy time to post an Alias story considering the fandom is all but retired at this point. But since I'm seeing the counter on my stories go up since I started posting again, it seems that there's still some interest out there, however slight. If so, feel free (but not obligated!) to send some feedback or a kudos or something so that I don't feel so much like I'm posting into the abyss?

Eh, just thought I'd try :-).

Anyway this won't be a long story, but I hope you enjoy nevertheless!

oOo

Previously:

Sydney Bristow looked back at her mother one last time, took a deep breath, then stepped into Il Dire...and vanished.

Prologue: The greatest power

Sydney blinked and re-focused on the computer. After she had confirmed that the plane that they had used to take down the Division the first time around existed this early in the timeline, she set about putting the things she needed together to take it out.

She had gone over her options and found them to be surprisingly thin. It would take a lifetime to convince the CIA to believe her and then they might just lock her away for her knowledge.

Meanwhile, any alternatives like getting former allies involved (i.e. Dixon or Marshall), outside of how hard it would be to convince them, might just get them killed if they were discovered before they could take down SD-6.

She had even contemplated contacting her father but discarded the thought after only moments. As much as she missed her father, despite how close they had become, their relationship in this time was…well, strained, to say the least.

She planned on rectifying that, had to, in fact, because if she had to lose everyone else, she couldn't lose him.

*But* if this thing went south, which she acknowledged that it could, considering she was going in with no backup, she wanted her father to have plausible deniability. So, she had to keep him out of it.

So plan D to do it alone, it was.

~.~.~

Getting on the plane was as easy as it was the first time around. What was annoying was that Nacor made her try on both pieces of lingerie again. Last time she started with the black and he picked the red. This time she started with the red and he chose the black. Bastard!

It at least made her feel justified when she choked him out the same as last time. At least this time though, instead of having to make an emergency escape via parachute, she was able to knock out the guard with an injection, which gave her all the time in the world to yank out the hard drive, destroy the plane's GPS and then get the pilot to land at an out of the way airstrip in California before knocking him out too.

She then left the three of them passed out in a car (after transferring the drugs and weapons from the plane to the car) along the Mexican border then phoned in a tip. The tip got them picked up but denied phone calls, so they couldn't contact the Network to let them the know the plane had been grounded or provide a description of who had grounded it.

The hard drive she sent to the CIA, and then caught snippets of the fallout via the news where they attempted to explain the collapse of a covert intelligence agency when from the outside it just looked like the shutdown of some domestic and international banks.

She made her peace with not being personally involved with the takedown this time around. The upside was that she did get to see Sloane do a perp walk on the news as he was marched out of Credit Dauphine a few days later.

There was definite satisfaction in him actually being there for the raid this time around.

The complete and utter collapse of the network that had ruined her life and untold others in exchange for sacrificing a future with the man she loved and friends and family she'd never get a chance to know now?

Fair trade.

oOo

"Sometimes terrible things happen so that great things can happen next. – tv "12 Monkeys"

A/N: Quote in the summary from Netflix's "The Defenders"