A/N: Nope, don't own them. And yeah, Thanks to everyone who is reviewing this. You guys are great! Urm, this chapter, kinda off. But okay. Lauren is no working for the Covenant... just to say. But okay. R/R, please!
Sark could not believe it. The one person he least expected to get him out of prison, not that he wouldn't have himself, was the one person that did. He couldn't figure it out, Sydney Bristow was sitting in front of him, apparently on her own free will, and wasn't trying to kill him.
"Cat got your tongue, Julian?" Sydney asked with an evil looking smirk.
"I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing here," he replied coolly, not at all showing the confused state his mind was in.
"Oh, if that's all." Sydney paused, looking back to the door, "Simon, come in then close the door." She told him, waiting to hear the door close before she continued. "I want to take you up on your offer to work with you."
Sark was speechless, never in a million years did he expect that one. "What?"
"I want to work with you. Only, I wouldn't work for you, you would be my partner." Sydney nodded, looking over his face, to see and sudden changes in his demeanor. When she found none, she went on speaking, "You asked me to once, and I declined, but now, I've have a chance to rethink your offer, and I think it sounds like a good idea."
The Queen of Patriotism, Sydney Bristow, was now sitting in front of Sark asking to be partners, it was something that not everyone got to see each day. "Why now?"
"Just because." She replied coldly, not wanting to go into the real reasons she wanted to work with him. She still have to figure that one out for herself.
Sark smirked at her answer before leaning back into his seat and crossing his arms, "And what's in it for me? What do I get for working for you?"
"What do you get, well, you get to stay alive. If that counts at all, if you don't agree, I'll have to let you go, and someone is going to kill you. There is no where you'd be safe, nowhere that isn't with me."
"Not true," he said smugly, "I could go to Allison, she'd keep me safe." Not that he liked the idea of any woman keeping his safe, he just liked to see Sydney get upset.
Simon chuckled at the mention of Allison's name, but was silence when Sydney shot him a dirty glance. "Nope, she won't. She's dead." Sydney told him simply, "I killed her."
Sark couldn't think of a reply to that, if Allison was dead, then something was wrong. Allison, he knew, was a hard woman to kill. And it would've taken a much strong woman to kill her. He knew that Sydney might be stronger than Allison, but he didn't think that she would actually be cold-blooded enough to kill her.
He wanted nothing less than to work for Sydney, but for the life of him he could not figure out why she had suddenly changed her mind about working with him. And why now, as far as he knew, she had no memory of the last three years, and was back on the CIA payroll.
"Let me ask you something," Sark leaned back to the table, resting his arms on the table, looking at Sydney with an odd look.
"Go ahead."
"You remember the last three years, don't you?"
Sydney was a bit taken aback by the question. Only because she hadn't expected it to come up so soon. "Yes, I remember everything, I remember everything I did, every single day, who I was with, what I did. Everything."
Sark noted the strange tone in her voice before going on. "And why the charade to get into the CIA?"
"Easy question, I need information, and I knew you were still in the custody of them." The CIA really were idiots. They would believe anything she told them, she had them eating out of the palm of her hand. "Here's the deal, Sark, I broke you out of custody because I need your help."
"With what?"
"Running my operations. I would ask Simon here to do it, but I need him doing other things. I need someone who I knew is going to run it while I have to play memory-lost-girl for the CIA, so I can get the information I need. I need someone who is willing to get their hands dirty, while I be a silent partner and sit out for a while."
"What exactly do you need help with?" Sark asked the question that Simon was thinking. He though the plan was to just break him out of the CIA building, he had no idea that Julia, or Sydney, was going to stay with them for longer than that.
Sydney looked to Simon, who was looking at her with a confused face, sighing she turned back to Sark, "I'm taking down the Covenant." She said simply, before stand, and walking out of the light's reach.
"What!" Yelled Simon, this was news to him, and he didn't particularly like it. "Why are we going to do that, Jules?" Simon ignored the look Sark had given him for using her old name. "And more importantly, how?"
Sydney stayed out of the light, but neither of the two men dared step closer to her, knowing she was deep in thought. "One, because they fucking kidnapped me. Two, I don't want them killing Sark," she didn't explain that one, but Sark knew he would get an explanation later. "And three, I think it would be fun."
Simon put his head in his hands and sighed. "You're crazy, Julia."
Sydney ignored that comment, having heard it many times before.
"What makes you think you can take down the Covenant?" Sark asked her. "What makes you so different from the others who've tried over the last three years?" Sark hadn't been fully kept in the dark in the last three years. He knew about the Covenant, and what they did. And he also knew that all the people who had tried to take it down in the past had failed miserably.
"Simply because I know the entire workings of it. I know the brains behind it. I don't know all of the key players, but I know most and can find out the rest. When I left I was higher up on the chain than the man who funded it. I know their weaknesses better than any other person. The list goes on," she said dully, her tone daring someone to argue with her.
"Wait, why do they want to kill me?" Apparently Sark had just remembered her second reason for wanting to take them down.
"I don't know, but they figure that since they gave me something I wanted, that I would need to give them something they wanted. I wanted Allison dead, they gave me information. Now they want you dead." She was still kicking herself in the ass for that one. She was so angry at herself for not realizing that they would want something in return.
"So, saying I do accept your terms, and do agree to work with you, how can you keep me alive from within the CIA, and keep me a secret from them?"
Sydney took a moment to answer that. "You wouldn't go on any missions, not until later in the game. I want you to move to my London home, run things out of there. You just need to arrange all the missions, and I will help you. But Simon here will find you men and go on missions himself."
Simon began to protest at that last statement, but his voice died in his throat, knowing that it was useless, he would be doing this whether he wanted to or not. But he defiantly wanted to.
Sark thought this all over, it was a hell of a thing to think about, and he appreciated that Sydney didn't pressure him into making a decision.
After about five minutes, Sark finally nodded. "I'll do it." Sydney could barely keep herself from hugging him. Instead she stepped back into the light and held out her hand in front of him.
"Welcome to the game, partner." She said, smiling.
Sark stood, who was followed by Simon who also stood, and took her outstretched hand in his own. He didn't say anything, but just shook her hand, he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that this was most likely going to be the last partnership he would ever make.
After a second Sydney dropped his hand and turned to Simon. "You in?" She asked him, knowing what the answer was already, but wanting to hear it from him.
In response he put his hand on her shoulder, "Wouldn't miss it for the world, love." He told her, smiling.
Her smile got bigger, she had what she wanted. She had her own organization, one that one day would be greater than her mother's, and she had one of the best spies in the world, herself included, working with her.
She is her mother's daughter, Sark thought as he watched her movements. One day, maybe she will be better than Irina.
"Now, we can get out of this dark room," Sydney said distastefully, "Tell me why we couldn't just go to London like I wanted, Simon." She said as the two men followed her out of the room into a hallway.
"Because it was to far away?" Simon offered, and then shrugged, he had know idea why they didn't just go to London. " I think it had something to do with you not going to London because of the CIA."
"Oh yeah." Sydney turned into a living room like place, that had leather sofas and fell down into one of them.
Sark watched her as she flopped down into the sofa while he sat on another facing that one. Simon sat at the other end of the sofa that Sark had sat on.
"Now," Sydney began, sitting up, facing the two, "Sark, you and Simon will be flying to London tomorrow morning. We have my London house set up, everything you might need it set up there, if not, then you can ask one of the housekeepers and they will make sure that you get it."
Sark nodded, "How many homes do you own?" He asked her, figuring that she would have quite a few.
"Um, let me count. I have this one, my other apartment by the beach, my London home, my Santa Barbara home. One in Spain, one house in Venice and one apartment in Florence. Though, I don't think I could ever go back there," she said sadly, "I liked that one the best." She said quietly, and looked out the large window, Simon nodded, and Sark just sat there, not understanding why she could never go back there. But that was okay.
A silence fell over the three as Sydney looked out the window and Sark and Simon both watched her. They all jumped with Sydney's cell phone rang from her jeans pocket. Sighing she picked it up and flipped it open, "Yeah?" She asked, standing up and walking towards the window.
"Where are you, Syd?" Eric's voice came through to her line. "We thought you had followed us back to the Rotunda, but you didn't come, and security said that you weren't at your house."
She hated how worried he sounded. She really liked Eric, that would never change, as much as something things changed, her friendship with him, she hoped, wouldn't be something that did. With a glance back at Sark and Simon, who where watching her talk, she answered him, "I went out for lunch," she lied, hating it. "I just needed to clear my head, I'll be in soon," she promised.
"Okay," He replied hesitantly. "Be careful," he said before hanging up. Syd frowned at her phone before flipping it shut and pushing it back into her pocket.
Turning around she found both of them still looking at her, and she shrugged. "It was Eric. I need to go into work now, I've taken to much time here."
Both men stood up as Sydney walked towards the door. Hugging Simon she smiled, and then shook Sark's hand, not knowing what else to do. "You know how to get me." She told them both with a smile before walking out of the door, leaving them to fend for themselves until tomorrow.
Sydney arrived at the Rotunda a few minutes later. Smiling at people as she walked in, she walked up to Eric, knowing he would want to she her get there safely.
"Good, Sydney, I was beginning to worry you had disappeared again," he joked, smiling, feeling a lot better that she was there. "Where'd you get food, and why didn't you invite me?" He asked, feigning hurt.
"I went to a small diner by my old apartment. Sorry, I just needed sometime to think."
Eric nodded, "I understand. Anytime you need me, you know where to find me." He offered, and gave her a hug, which she returned, smiling. Breaking away from the hug she smiled at her friend and tried not to show the guilt she had in her eyes. Eric gave her a large smile and patted her on the shoulder. "It's alright," he assured her before walking off.
Sydney stood there, knowing that he meant well, and she wanted to tell him what she had planned, not only because he was her friend, but because she knew he would help her. With all of it, so would Marshall, her father and probably even Vaughn. But that was the exact reason she couldn't tell them. They all had lives, she couldn't endanger them more than she had already, even though she would most likely need to use some of them, and lie to them, in the course of her endeavors.
But this was not time to think about something like that. She needed to get those thoughts out of the back of her head, to make sure that she seemed normal to everyone else. Shaking her head she walked over to the desk they had given her, Dixon has assured her that she would be given an office soon, and put her purse down, and was about to sit down when Dixon called to her from the conference room. "Sydney, could you come in here?"
Sighing she pushed her chair back in before she walked towards the room, only semi ready for what she would hear.
Sydney sat down between Marshall and Eric. Her father, Dixon and Vaughn all sat at the other table, Lauren was nowhere to be seen.
"I wanted to talk to you all to say what a good job you did this morning," Dixon nodded to them all in turn before continuing. "Sark is no longer in our custody, but we figure that he will turn upon our radar soon enough."
Sydney kept her face neutral, she wanted to laugh and tell them that her probably wouldn't, but that would be a bad thing.
Not hearing anything from the group, Dixon nodded, "For now, we have another mission at the present. It seems that the Covenant is making a deal with an unknown organization, and they are swapping a disk with their main players on it for money. We had hopes of getting that disk."
Sydney frowned, but didn't say anything. She quickly erased the look from her face before asking a question, "Who's going to get the disk?" She asked, hoping it would be her, because that would just be fun, in her mind that was.
"You, and you alone. You know what to do, this isn't a hard mission, all you have to do it switch the disk for an identical one, which is filled with music files. It shouldn't be that hard."
Sydney nodded, "When do I leave?"
"In an hour, Marshall will give you your alias and the disk you'll need. Any questions?" When Dixon saw that there were none he nodded, and everyone got up to leave.
When they had left the conference room Sydney walked back to her desk and sat down, rooting through her purse to find some chapstick. When she finally found some she pulled it out and threw her purse back down on the desk. Pulling off the cap of the chapstick she stared at it for a minute. What the hell did I get myself into? She asked herself before running the chapstick over her lips.
Stuffing the used chapstick into her pocket she got up and made her way over to the Tech room to talk to Marshall.
"Hey, Syd." Marshall called from his computer chair, not looking up.
"Hey," she walked over to Marshall and stood next to his chair, watching as he saved countless music files onto a disk.
"Here, that should be full enough," he told her handing the disk to her. She took it and looked at the disk before dropping her hand. "This exchange will happen in a bar, so I made up an alias just as someone in the bar. You can pick your own dress, but make it something tight," Marshall blushed when he said that, and turned away from her.
Sydney chuckled, "Okay, thanks Marshall." She told him and walked out, shaking her head and laughing.
Walking back to her small desk, she put he disk that Marshall had given her into the purse and got ready to go. She needed to get the outfit she had worn to the club the night that Vaughn had met Simon. That one would be perfect.
Sydney brushed past Vaughn making her way out, ignoring his calling her, wanting to talk. She did not want to talk to him. Even though she was doing this all as an act, she had still loved him once. And it still hurt that he had gotten married.
An hour later
Sydney sat on a plane, her outfit in the bag beside her, and her cell phone in her hand. She was alone on the plane, except for the pilot and other people who needed to be on the plane. They were flying to London, where this was exchange was to go on. She had to contact Simon to tell him what was going on, an why they wouldn't see her before the flight they had tomorrow. But she had worked it out so that they would see her tomorrow at her place in London. Dixon had told her that she was to stay an extra day, going over the disk herself, to see if any of the names sounded familiar, or she recognized any of the pictures. It gave her a good reason to stay and go over some of the data with Sark and Simon.
Punching in numbers to her cell phone she held it up to her ear and skimmed the folder she had in front of her.
"Walker," Simon answered on the third ring.
"It's me. I wanted you to know that I'm not going to see you before you two leave for London."
"Why not? Are you on one of your top secret missions again?"
"No, I'm getting a disk from the Covenant. But I want you to expect me to be at the London house when you get there."
"Alright, I'll be seeing you, Jules."
"Bye," she said, before shutting her phone. Here was the opportunity she needed, and the funny thing was that it was just handed to her. They didn't have to fight for it. And that sort of scared her. She knew who was making the trade, and it was no one who would recognize her in a crowd, nor up close. And that was a good thing. So this shouldn't be all that hard. She had pictures of the men, and time that this was all going to happen.
Now all she had to do was get in and out alive.
