Weiss turned to Sydney as they sat in Vaughn's driveway. He had done her a favor and left work half an hour early so that she wouldn't have to see Vaughn when she picked up her car. This little argument might be pulling him in two directions at once, but that didn't mean he couldn't see how much Sydney was hurting inside.

"Are you going home now?" he asked to break the silence.

"I don't know," she said honestly, staring at her lone car in the driveway. "I still don't want to be alone."

"You can come over to my house. Even spend the night." He laughed. "I'll make sure you're not late for work in the morning."

"I would love to have you cheer me up, Weiss. But I don't think you're in the position to do that right now."

"Hey! I'm insulted."

His outburst got its intended response as she grinned. "I just mean that you care too much for both Vaughn and I. I'm at the stage where I just wanted to bitch and complain about what he did to me, and I want the person I'm with to agree with me every step of the way. You can't do that."

"No, I can't."

Sydney opened the door and slammed it shut behind her. Weiss shifted the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway, pausing as he reached the street to roll down the window. "Will you tell me who can?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. I promise when the time is right."

"This is starting to get very shady, Sydney. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were sleeping with the enemy or something ridiculous like that."

Her heart stopped for a second until she realized that he was kidding. "Very funny. I'll see you tomorrow, Weiss."

"Bright and early," he insisted.

"I won't be late. Now get out of here."

Sydney watched the car until it turned right and left her field of vision. It was a good three minutes before she made a move to get in her car. She had to make sure that Weiss hadn't circled the block intent on following her to wherever she ended up. "Once a spy, always a spy."

She unlocked her car and slid in. There was enough time wasted in talking with Weiss. She wanted to get as far from this house and neighborhood as she could. It was causing her too much pain still to hang around dredging up old memories she didn't want at the moment. Plus, there was quite a few things for her to think through on her drive, and she didn't want hurtful memories to intrude upon that little bit of peace.

First, there were these nagging memories that kept slamming into her at the most inopportune times. These were the memories she wanted to feel come upon her at any moment in the day. She wasn't hiding from them anymore.

She had done her best during her weekend with Sark to not let him see her falter as her vision clouded and pictures of events she didn't know happened fired at her. He hadn't even guessed that the things he had remembered with ease were just a handful of curveballs constantly being flung at her body. Her dreams at night and during the day were haunted with visions of her time with Sark and echoed with feelings of security and content.

The second thing at the front of her mind was the fact she still wasn't sure what to do with this sudden relationship with Sark that wasn't feeling so new. There was a history there that she hadn't factored in before, and that history was bringing about consequences she had not foreseen. Without a thought, he had seemingly replaced Vaughn in her life.

She had spent the afternoon trying to come up with justification for how her conversation with Vaughn had turned out. His bitterness was expected, but the harshness of his voice and the way he had grabbed her had her dumbfounded. Vaughn had never been physically or emotionally violent towards her before. She knew, in the back of her mind, he was just upset at the speed in which their relationship had soured.

If he had known how many times she had reached to pick up her cell phone and call Sark after they talked, he would have been twice as furious and three times as upset.

Each time her hand had gone to the phone, she had stopped herself. If someone at the Agency heard her talking to a wanted criminal, she was pretty sure she'd have more problems than just a few life-altering disagreements with the men that meant the most in her life. She had allowed herself to lie to her own self in saying that this was the main reason she kept from calling him.

The truth was she was scared. She was scared of what this new relationship would mean for her career and her personal life. However, what really scared her most was how bad she just wanted to hear his voice. She had a feeling that was all she needed to make it through the day.

Her head started to throb lightly all of the sudden as she made a left turn on her way back to her home, and she could feel her shoulders tense up. "Shit," she muttered as she pulled the car over to the side of the road quickly and flicked on the emergency flashers. Letting out a sigh, she leaned back into her seat and let the full impact of her memory come to her.

Sydney lay in a hotel bed. For the first time in a long while, she could feel the satisfaction of having nothing to worry about and no troublesome thoughts racing through her as she stared at the wall across from the bed. There was a slight wind blowing in from the open window, and she shivered slightly in delight.

She was the most comfortable that she had ever felt in her life.

She could feel an arm snake around her and pull her close. By instinct alone and the feel of his body on hers, she knew it was Sark.

"When did you get in?" she asked without turning. The warmth of his body against hers was familiar and reassuring. Things hadn't felt right while he had been gone.

"About two minutes ago."

"And you came right here?"

He nuzzled the back of her neck. "I've been thinking about you non-stop since I left. I almost got myself killed a hundred times because my head wasn't in the game."

She turned over to face him. "Maybe we should end this now then. We both know it's not safe."

He smirked. "When have we ever played it safe, love?"

Without another word, she ran her fingers lightly up his chest until they rested at his collar. He watched her in awe as she meticulously unbuttoned his shirt. "I missed you, too." She slid the shirt off his shoulders and hit his chest lightly with her fists. "You need to be careful when you're out there. I don't fancy having to sleep in a cold bed."

His eyes went wide as she rolled over until she was straddling his body. "Well, at least we can be certain the bed won't be cold tonight. Not with the way you're welcoming me back."

"Welcoming you home," she corrected without looking him in the eyes. "This is your home, you know."

"This is a hotel room in the Caribbean, Syd. You've been living in it for only two weeks. It's completely temporary, and yet you call it home."

She gave him a look. "You're being too literal again."

"I know it's my home," he said, nudging her chin lightly with his hands so that she would have to look up. "My home is wherever I can find you."

"Being with you is my home, too."

"You don't mean that," he corrected. "You and I both know that if you had a chance, you would go running back into the CIA's waiting arms without hesitation or fear. That's where you belong."

She laid her head down on his chest. "I don't know where I belong anymore."

With a sigh, he rubbed her arms gently with the palms of his hand. He would miss the power of causing goosebumps to rise on her skin when she was gone. Because at the bottom of his heart, he knew that whatever they had would be forced to end someday. "I can't tell you the answer to that. All I can say is every day I spend with you I'm thankful that I've gotten that long."

"Why did you help me in the first place?" she asked.

He hesitated. That hesitation told her more than his words would. "I can't tell you that."

She slid off the bed and walked over to the window. "When are you going to tell me?" She turned back to face him and pulled down on the hem of her t-shirt in an unconscious show of nerves. "I mean, it's painfully obvious that you started this whole liaison for a reason. There was some benefit that you wanted to reap. You and I have been dancing around the subject for weeks now. I want to know what it is."

"What it was," he corrected while he stood up and slid his pants off. Now clothed only in his boxers, he took a seat on the bed and lay down with his hands tucked behind his head. It was a cocky stance but one that she had gotten used to seeing on him.

Sydney turned to face him. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"In the beginning, helping you was a strong benefit to what my endgame was. But that was in the beginning." He stopped and gave her a look of exasperation. "Would you come back to bed? I'm exhausted."

"If you're exhausted, why do you want me in bed so much?" she teased.

"I'm not that tired," he said giving her a meaningful look. It was the gleam in his eyes when he said he wanted her that made her never want to leave his side.

She smirked at him but found herself making her way over to the bed. "Don't think that you can seduce your way out of this conversation."

He winked at her. "Scout's honor. I won't try to seduce you until this conversation has ended in a way that I deem satisfactory."

She laid her head down on his chest again, letting out a big sigh. "Oh, you woo me with your words, Julian Lazarey."

"So where were we?" he asked as he played with her hair lightly.

"For starters, you just promised me two seconds ago that you wouldn't seduce me, Mr. Grabby Hands." She playfully slapped the hand that had slowly snuck its way down to her backside. "I was about to ask you if in the beginning, helping me was such a benefit to you, what is it now?"

"Helping you is the only thing that keeps me from losing it. I've been standing in the shadows, making sure that you become a stronger, more competent agent from this. It hasn't been easy, Syd. I know you've been through a lot of pain." He took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn't press him too hard to speak about things that he knew she wouldn't really want to hear. "Really, I'm exactly the person you always thought I was."

"I don't understand." She propped herself up on one elbow and looked into his eyes.

"I'm a monster."

"No, you're not. You've shown that you're a good person by all the things you've done for me in the past eighteen months. You're not a monster, and you never really were."

"Oh, I think I am. I've seen how much pain and torture you've been subjected to in working with the Covenant. Your whole life has been destroyed because of something I convinced you to do. I've made it seem to you like I've been out for your best interests this whole time. You think that I'm your personal knight in shining armor, here to protect you from all the nasty aftereffects of the work you're doing and make sure that you leave here without changing who you are. But when push comes to shove, I'm not even man enough to do the one thing you need. If I could erase this all, and I probably could if I wanted to, I wouldn't. I'm not brave enough to let you go."

She just stared at him in shock.

"When it comes down to it, it's not my desire to be on top that would keep me from letting you go. It's my own selfish nature. I don't want to let you go." He took her hand in his and looked her straight in the eyes. "I refuse to let you go because I love you, Sydney."

Her eyes welled up with tears. He had never said those words to her before and meant it like the way he meant it at this very moment.

"Which is why I'm going to let you go. If you want, you can walk out of this hotel right now and back to the CIA. I can deal with the Covenant. You'll have a perfect excuse about how you got your memories back all of the sudden. I can do at least that for you."

"You would let me walk out just like that?"

"If that was what you wanted, absolutely."

She kissed him lightly on his forehead, working her way until her lips touched his gently. "Well, it's good news for you that I don't want that."

"You don't?"

"No. If I had to go back to the CIA, I think I would be miserable. It's no longer the place I want to be."

"And you expect me to believe that working for the Covenant is where you want to be instead."

She laughed lightly, trying to cover up the small feelings of guilt that were spring up into her mind. Her ties with the CIA were not as far in the past as Sark would have liked to believe. She had been reporting to them for the past three months without anyone knowing in an effort to destroy the Covenant from the inside before they gathered up too much power.

It was this secret she had that made her words seem both completely true and false at the same time. The point she was working towards however wasn't a lie in any sense of the word. It may, in fact, be the first true thing she has wanted to say in years.

She pushed the guilt completely out of her mind and focused on the man lying beside her in the bed. "Working for the Covenant is not exactly my idea of an ideal job. But that's what it has turned out to be. You see I had never met someone who got me like you do. You understand why I've given up everything to be here today, and you aren't judgmental of any decision I've made to bring me to this point. It's hard to find that."

He didn't say anything in response because he honestly didn't know how to respond to what she was saying.

"God help me, Julian. I think I love you, too."

He smiled at her and pulled his body on top of her. "You do realize that we could be the death of each other."

Her eyes flashed with a wicked gleam. "Now that our conversation has ended quite satisfactorily, I think you and I should see just how much of each other we can take."

Sydney shook her head and took a deep breath. These memories were really hard to digest. It was like she was watching a movie or reading a book. The images were so foreign to her, but she found herself inherently relating to them. She understood that it was her in these visions. What she did in them felt natural.

She let that natural feeling take control as she watched first Weiss's house and then her own pass by the window in a blur. It wasn't surprising at all to see that Sark's car was no longer parked where she had hid it that morning. He wouldn't leave a small detail like that to be cleaned up at another time. He prided himself on his thoroughness.

It had been the truth when she told Weiss that she didn't want to be alone. At this point, Returning to her house would have almost made her feel like she was hiding from her problems.

As she paused at a stop sign, she found it slightly freeing to let her emotions take over her rational mind for once. She let her heart control her as she pushed the gas pedal to the floor and turned onto a road she had visualized in her head a thousand times that day already. It didn't surprise her one bit to find herself pulling into Sark's driveway a few minutes later.

By the time she had gotten out of the car and walked up to the front door, he was there, leaning against the doorframe. He looked both at ease and completely on edge at the same time.

"You're home," she said simply. "I wasn't sure if you would be gone on business by now."

He laughed. "Silly, silly Sydney. Do you honestly think I'd leave when I could see just how much you needed me to be around?"

She took the hand he had extended and let him lead her into his home. "Do you want to know what I realized on my way over here?"

"What?" he said, shutting and locking the door behind her. He couldn't help but stare out the window for a few seconds to make sure that no one had been watching them.

"Look at me."

It was her tone more than her command that made him turn and look at her.

"I was very confused about what you and I were as recent as an hour ago. You've known this, and for some reason that escapes me, you've actually been patient with me. Even when I told you that I was having trouble dealing with these new memories pressuring themselves into my head, you didn't get angry."

"I'd say I'm making progress," he joked. "Listen, Syd. You don't have to worry about that. I understand that it's going to take you time to fully deal with the full story of where you were for two years. For whatever reason, I think the memory erasing process was a little more traumatic for you than I."

"That could be because when the erasing took place you were a willing participant while I was not."

He shook his head and chuckled lightly. "Somehow, I knew when I made that hard decision to erase both our memories, you would find some way to hold it against me."

"The difference in trauma is our real problem, I think. However, I did have a moment of clarity on my drive over here." She walked over to where he stood in front of the door and stroked his cheek lightly. "I loved you with my whole heart once. What I realized on my way here was that I don't think I should be talking about that in the past tense."

"What are you saying?" Sark asked hesitantly.

"I didn't love you once." She smiled at him. "I love you now."

He stared down at her. "I'm glad you came to me today."

"Me, too," she said, grabbing his hand and leading him over to the couch. "Okay, what do you want to do tonight?"

"I don't care," he said, sitting down and pulling her close. "I'm just happy to have you here."

After ten seconds of silence, she looked up at him. "So, how long do you think we can go without bickering?"