Sydney would have expected Sark to keep calling her non-stop until she changed her mind about their relationship. At least, that's what she would have expected before she really gave thought to his reaction to her rejection. He had resigned himself to accept it, and when he left her house, she had seen the pain in his eyes.

She had hurt him.

It was hard for her to deal with. Without thinking, she had formed him into a man who didn't feel any pain, who didn't show any weakness. He had said time and again that he had a weakness. Her. But she hadn't really thought about what that meant. She knew now that she meant enough to him that he let her make her own decisions.

Which was why she wasn't surprised when he didn't call her even once. There would be no contact between them, at least nothing initiated by him. She knew that he wasn't the type of guy to accept defeat easily. But up until a few months earlier, she wouldn't have expected him to be the type of guy who would be so willing to sacrifice anything and everything just to keep her happy. She knew in the back of her mind that this time to think wasn't going to last forever. Eventually he would try to start swaying her again.

This rationale was why when her phone rang at her office desk she was so surprised to hear his voice on the other side. "I heard you're heading off to Mexico with Agent Harling on a mission."

"You know you can't be calling here," she hissed. "How did you get this number?"

"I'm a man with many resources. But it's nice to know that you're worried about me getting into trouble."

"You're always in trouble," she commented, unable to keep from smiling. This no relationship thing was going to be a lot harder in practice than in theory. "What situation warrants a call to my office?"

"I just wanted to make sure you'll keep your promise to me. Be careful around her. Mexico isn't exactly the easiest place to watch your back."

"It's fine. We're going to be in a populated area of San Felipe. Our mark has a soft side for spending her second husband's money."

"That's good to hear. I know that we're having some issues with trust here. Even if you don't trust me, I want you to still be on your guard."

Sydney rubbed her temples as she felt a headache automatically start to form. She couldn't do this again. "Let's not fight."

"I wasn't going to start fighting with you. See, I'm speaking in my calm voice." His heart skipped a little when he heard her chuckle on the other side of the line. "Hurting you is the last thing I want to do, and obviously, talk about Stephanie Harling upsets you. I just wanted to make sure you realized that you'd have little to no backup while you're in Mexico. You'll be a sitting duck for Stephanie to pick off whenever the moment is right."

"Number one, we can't have back up on a quick stakeout, take down mission. Number two, you're assuming that Stephanie is the woman you say she is."

"I know I'm right. And I just hope that you don't get hurt before you let yourself believe me."

"You shouldn't have called," Sydney pointed out. She scanned the room to make sure that no one was listening to her conversation. "This is only making things worse."

"No, this is only making things harder. I'm not going to push you, Syd. I'm not going to force you into decisions that aren't completely your choice." She heard him take a deep breath on his end of the line. "Honestly, I did want to warn you, but I also just wanted to hear your voice. You've become a staple in my life. It's hard to go cold turkey."

"It's the easiest way," she answered simply. "It's what I have to do right now."

"I understand that. I guess all I'm trying to say to you, the only point I really want to get across is that no matter what, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be right here, waiting for you."

"We both know that I made the right decision, Julian. Without trust, our relationship was standing on shaky ground. We couldn't keep going on like we were."

"No, we couldn't," he admitted, sighing. "Did you ever think that maybe instead of breaking off the relationship, we could just work on building that whole trust thing? You know the kind of person I am. Trust doesn't come easily for me. The same goes for you. It's going to take time and work."

"I know that. It's just that time isn't something I have a lot of right now."

"That makes two of us. I'd be willing to rearrange some things to change that whenever you're ready. Because I'm not the type of guy who just sits back and lets the one good thing in his life fall through his fingers."

A funny image popped into head, and she couldn't help herself. "You're not getting all Romeo and Juliet on me. We both don't have to die to finish this thing."

"No," he said determinedly. "There will be no dying on your part."

"Good. I've done it once, and I don't want to do it again."

"Why? Are you afraid you'll find another cold-hearted spy who will steal your heart?"

"I'm not afraid. I'm petrified."

She could practically hear his smile through the phone. "Good. Be careful, Syd."

"I will."

"I love you," he said after hesitating a moment.

She said the only thing she thought she could afford to without losing all of the resolve it took her so long to build up. "I know."

There was a moment's hesitation as if he was going to say more before she heard the faint click of him hanging up the phone on his end. In her mind, leaving him had always been the right choice. It was bound to happen. They had a history together. Unlike most cases, though, their history was not a happy one. It was what made her doubt the words he said to her.

She hung up her phone and grabbed her jacket. She needed air.


Mexico was exactly like she remembered it. Too damn hot and dusty for her liking. The whole flight down Sydney had thought about her promise to Sark. She watched Stephanie like a hawk and was pleased to pick up on no suspicious behavior. He had to be wrong about her.

"What's on your mind today, Sydney?" Stephanie asked. They were sitting on a bench on the side of the street waiting for their mark to exit the store she was currently shopping in. "You're on another planet."

"I'm thinking about that guy I was telling you about."

"Oh yeah. What was his name again?"

"I never said. Don't be insulted, but I'm still not sure that anyone should know about me and this guy."

"I understand. It's the whole Noah Hicks thing again. I think you have a fetish for secret relationships, Bristow."

"No way. I know firsthand how horribly hard they are. I wouldn't wish them on anyone." She sighed and scanned the street, catching sight of a beautiful Mexican woman walking out of the store. "Marquez just left the shop. Let's go."

After a few moments of casually walking down the street in silence, Stephanie said, "Don't think this subject is over. I want to hear more about what happened with this guy."

"We had a fight. I ended it. It's as simple as that."

"No, I don't think it is. You seem crushed, Sydney. What did the bastard do to you?"

"Nothing specific, and he's not a bastard. We just didn't have any trust in our relationship. I guess it stems from the fact that he plays for the other side. I just can't believe him when he tells me things about my professional life."

"What did he tell you this time?"

"It was nothing. He was wrong." Sydney turned her attention to Gabriella Marquez. The young woman had built a drug empire from the ground up by the time she was twenty-two. She was arguably one of the most powerful women in the country. And the US government thought that she was branching out from drugs into weapon smuggling. Specifically weapon smuggling into the United States.

That wasn't even getting into her fascination with Rambaldi artifacts. It seemed like an epidemic that was spreading throughout the world. If it were up to Sydney, she would destroy every Rambaldi artifact she could find in hopes that her life would finally return to normal.

This Rambaldi connection, however, was the whole reason that Stephanie had volunteered to go along on the mission. She had been monitoring Marquez for months. The Chicago branch was convinced that she was harboring a particularly important Rambaldi artifact. Now it seemed she was about to release it and a good stock of weapons onto the black market. Marquez had a particularly interesting business meeting on that subject set up for later that day.

Sydney took a pause from the rational to just study the appearance of this woman. When Sydney first saw a picture of her, she wasn't surprised that she was drop dead gorgeous. A woman in Mexico with that much power would have had to use her looks to get her foot in the door. But she hadn't expected Gabriella Marquez's appearance to be twice as effective in person. It was a great asset. "God, I would kill to look like that woman," she said with a laugh.

Stephanie looked at her like she was crazy. "Sydney, I don't know if you've looked in the mirror lately, but you do look like that woman. You know, minus the whole Latino thing."

Sydney rolled her eyes and just kept walking. "I think she's heading into that warehouse. Looks like they bumped up that time table for the meeting."

"Lucky for us."

Both women made sure to not speed up their steps. Rushing around would draw attention to them, and they were supposed to take Marquez into custody not alert her to their presence so she could escape.

Sydney reached down for her gun and pushed the large metal door open. It creaked slightly, and she prayed that no one would hear it. Stephanie filed in behind her with her own gun in hand. They made their way up to the catwalk scaffolding that was hanging right about where Marquez was standing and settled in for a little bit of stakeout. Both knew that it was critical they made sure Marquez was doing what she was suspected of before they rushed in, guns blazing.

"So," Stephanie said, "How are you dealing with the cold turkey method of relationship ending?"

Sydney glanced at her. Why would Stephanie want to keep talking now that they had gotten down to business? "I don't think this is the time to be discussing it."

"Come on, Syd. We have at least half an hour before this thing really gets underway and we can make our move. We might as well entertain ourselves. We just won't let our guard down while we're doing it."

Resigned, Sydney nodded. She really did need to talk to someone about the Sark situation. "It's funny. He called it the same thing. Quitting cold turkey. I never really thought of it that way."

"It's hard."

"Tell me about it."

Stephanie reached out and touched Sydney's gun. "Is this the new model?"

Sydney relinquished her hold on the gun. Like Stephanie pointed out, she wouldn't need it in hand for quite a while. "Yeah. Dixon likes to keep me outfitted with the best stuff. I think he can't get past the whole partner mentality where he's responsible for keeping me alive. It's nice."

"I never had a partner like that. I never really trusted any of the people I was partnered up with." Stephanie looked over the gun in her hands, closely. "I've never seen one of these up close before."

"Trust is a big issue," Sydney said, her mind going back to Sark and staying there.

"It all goes back to this mystery man in your life, doesn't it?"

"I've gotten used to my life revolving around him. Seriously, though, I keep expecting him to be knocking on my door, telling me what a moron I am."

"And he isn't. That says something, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but not in the way you think. He's only staying away because he knows I need to think. If he pushed me, there's no way I would change my mind about ending this relationship. He knows me."

"It seems to me like you keep talking about two different men. One moment there's no trust between you, and then the next you're saying that you've trusted him enough to let him know the kind of person you really are."

"That's the dynamic of our whole relationship. I mean, he's given me no reason to not trust him. But it's just so hard to believe."

"Because of all the stuff he's done to you in the past."

A small warning went off inside Sydney's head, but she didn't flinch. "Right. All those run-ins in the field have taken their toll."

Her attention still focused on the gun, Stephanie continued with her train of thought, "I mean with his past, he's pretty much breed to hurt people. His father was vicious in his heyday."

Sydney's heart dropped out, and she really couldn't recover enough to keep the pretext of the conversation going. "How do you know about his father?"

Stephanie looked up, and her eyes widened as she realized what she had done. She cocked the safety off Sydney's gun and pointed it at her. "I guess I just put my foot in my mouth. Funny, I've never made a mistake like that around you before. Well, I guess I'm just going to have to finish this now and clean up my sloppiness."

All Sydney could think was Sark had been right, and she hadn't trusted him enough to believe.

And now she was going to be killed.