"Huh?" That was all Sydney could force out of her mouth. The President of Lithuania had just told her that the man she loved had never lied to her when they worked with the Covenant. Sark had always been there to help her and get her through the whole ordeal. It is what she had been blindly believing and hoping since she first came to understood how much she loved and needed Julian. And now someone was finally telling her that it was true.

"I'm sorry to just be spring these things on you. I wish there had been a simpler, gentler way of telling you the truth." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I don't even know why you've let me get this far. But I'm telling the truth."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because the man who's been manipulating you has been manipulating me also." President Derek Danelus pulled his glasses off and set them on the desk. "Peter Connelly has been blackmailing me for information I had on the descendents of Rambaldi for years. He has viciously destroyed every inch of a life that I once had before assuming this office. I used to have a wife, children, grandchildren who loved me and were a part of my life. Now my family has been reduced to just a façade, only there so that I won't appear to be a weak leader. The second I step down, they are gone."

"What did Connelly do to you?"

"Nothing that you wouldn't do if you really wanted something, Julia."

"Call me Sydney." She gave him a weak smile when he looked at her in shock. He hadn't expected her to admit that she believed him so easily. But then he didn't know that she already knew she wasn't Julia Thorne. "I know who I am, Derek. You didn't have to tell me."

To his credit, he contained his surprise rather quickly. He was obviously as good of a politician as everyone claimed. "Then why did you make me? If you already knew, why have me explain it to you?"

"I had to find out your reasons. People have been trying to kill me my whole life. I don't take unnecessary chances." Making a split second decision, she gave him another grin, hoping it appeared as reassuring as she wanted it to. "Would you hold on a second?"

After his nod of affirmation, she reached up and pressed her ear piece back on. "Weiss, I'm all right. Julian, you should stop lurking around the perimeter and pretending like you didn't follow me to this location. Come inside. The President has some things you might want to hear."


Julian smiled at Weiss as he made his way past the parked car. Weiss simply rolled his eyes and resumed talking on his cell phone. Sark guessed that he must be relaying the new developments in Sydney's assignment. Unlike Sydney, Weiss seemed to actually care that he kept his job with the US government.

He entered the foyer to see Sydney and President Danelus waiting for him. "Hello, President," he said, crisply looking to Sydney for confirmation. When she smirked at him and winked, he let his last few reservations go. "What is this I hear about information I need to know?"

"Connelly has been blackmailing the President for information about Rambaldi's descendents. Derek told him that there was only one remaining descendent."

"That was why Connelly doesn't know about your sister."

"And the evidence of Nadia's existence as a descendent was hidden."

"How does this man know about your sister?" Sark asked. He was still trying to figure out what was going on. This was way too easy for his liking. Usually it took a near-death experience for him to figure out the truth. "No one knew of her existence until a year ago."

"I can explain that one," the president interjected. "Nadia has been doing a few freelance assignments for me while working for the Argentine government. She had run into a situation with one of the fugitive groups in the country and need some money fast. I was there to offer her aid in that way, and I got to do what I felt needed to be done. You see, someone had to watch over Nadia in case Connelly found out that she existed. It couldn't be you or anyone you knew, Sydney. Otherwise I might have told you sooner that she was in Argentina."

"It seems like you think you know Sydney very well even though you two have never met," Sark pointed out, shifting a little where he stood. Maybe it was just the fact that he had a life where anyone and everyone might stab you in the back at any moment, but he did not trust this guy. At least, not yet.

"My life has been Rambaldi for so long. Rambaldi equals the Derevko bloodline. So, therefore, I do know her well."

"Why don't we stop trying to attack the president, Julian, and let him talk?" Sydney looked over at the man in question. "Tell him about the evidence of my sister's existence being hidden."

"That would be the disk that Miss Bristow tells me the two of you jointly stole from CyroTech a little while back. CyroTech Corporation is one of my holdings that I had before I took office here. I have to admit that I lost track of what they were doing at that complex. I didn't realize how bad the situation had become."

"Everything's connecting so conveniently," Sark said sarcastically. "Isn't that nice!"

"I understand your hesitation, Julian. It took me months to get your trust the first time around." The president paused a moment before continuing on, "Things are only clicking into place right now because I'm through with hiding from the people. Connelly wanted you to come here to find out if I was going to crack. He wanted to know if I could come face to face with a woman who has been used by so many people and if I could lie to her myself. It was like his final test for me."

Sydney bit her lip. No matter what the president said, it was hard to accept that things were actually working out. Luckily she didn't have to respond to him. Sark chose to instead. "I don't understand why Connelly would have gone to so much trouble to get Sydney to meet with you. What was his goal?"

"Sydney was telling me while we waited for you to come inside that you had a theory about that of your own."

"We thought that Connelly wanted to get his hands on a Rambaldi descendent to get some information."

"He wanted information on a weapon. Put together the knowledge that you have, Sydney, that Julian has, and that I have, and he would have his answer. Our lives have been leading up to this point."

Sydney looked over at her fiancé. He was nodding his head, but she could still see him hesitate. "Well, you have had your hands in a good portion of our lives without our knowledge, haven't you, Mr. President?"

"I would have told you all this sooner if I thought it would have helped and if it had been a realistic option."

"His family was threatened by Connelly," Sydney explained.

"That's the oldest trick in the book."

"It worked," the president said. "I kept silent for way too long. I let Connelly believe that he could get what he desired with a little pushing and prodding of your life, Sydney. For that, again, I'm sorry."

"So what changed your mind about keeping silent?" Sark asked. He seemed to be warming up to the idea that the president was telling the truth.

"It wasn't until I received a message from Julia Thorne through one of my private channels that she wanted a meeting that I figured it was time to come clean."

"It was Connelly setting up the meeting. The bastard didn't even wait to kidnap me before putting the wheels in motion."

"He was always extremely cocky."

"Now I know where you get it from," she said, rolling her eyes.

"What else is there that I need to know?" Sark asked as he turned his attention back to the president.

The president shot him a strange look before continuing. "I expected Sydney's spotty memory, but yours I was unprepared for."

"I wiped my memory clean along with Sydney's," he explained simply. "Sorry if it causes you any extra work."

"You were working with me to determine the descendents of Rambaldi for a few months before the Covenant's plans caused Sydney to be ripped from her life in Los Angeles. You were pulling double duty, working for me and doing your normal freelance jobs. You seemed really determined at keeping the ruse going."

Sydney smiled at him. "You agreed to work with the Covenant to protect me, Julian. It looks like I was right, and you always did have a crush on me. You followed me to the Covenant and protected me just like we always thought. You didn't want to kill me."

"You were protecting Sydney so that Connelly's plan would at least partially work. You couldn't let him fail if you were going to figure out what he was trying to do, but you also wouldn't compromise Sydney's safety."

Sark slunk down into a nearby chair and set his head into his hands. "All this thinking is making my head hurt. I don't think I can see straight."

"Stop being dramatic," Sydney scolded. "I'll put it in simple, easy to understand wording. You were working with Danelus before he took power as the president of Lithuania to help find the descendents of Rambaldi. When you two discovered that the Derevko line was involved, you agreed to help keep me safe. The President started to be threatened by Connelly, and together you two figured out what he had planned. However, that was too late to keep the Covenant from kidnapping me, and you were forced to play along with Connelly and the Covenant's plans in order to keep me safe. At the first possible moment, you were going to return me to my life as Sydney. But I beat you to it and saved myself. As a precaution, you erased both our memories, thinking we would just shift back to our normal roles as mortal enemies. It didn't work out that way. We remembered. We got into a lot of trouble trying to figure out the pieces that didn't come back so easily. And here we are."

He looked up at her and gave her a nasty look. "Head. Hurts. Words. Hurt."

"Grow. Up," she answered, her teeth ground together in anger and frustration. "I thought you were supposed to be a super spy. Try to act like it."

"I don't understand why you two are still working together if you no longer think you're Julia Thorne," the president asked, trying to calm the situation down. There was too much tension in the air.

"Contrary to what it looks like, I actually love this pain in my ass," Sydney said.

Sark gave the president an uncharacteristic goofy grin. "She's spending the rest of her life with me."

"Okay."

"So, now he's told us what he knows. What do we do now?"

Sydney thought a moment before nodding and walking out the front doors. "Eric? Is Connelly still in your custody?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Make sure he stays there. And tell Dixon that Sark and I are heading in with some information that should keep him there indefinitely. He's been playing most of the world in order to get some sort of Rambaldi weapon. This whole thing reminds me too much of what the Sloane situation was. We need to keep a close eye on him. We should be in L.A. and at the CIA headquarters within nine hours."

"You and Sark?"

"Yes. We're both coming in, and he will not be blindfolded. Tell Marcus and my father they're just going to have to deal with that."