MIRROR IMAGE

Rating: R
Timeline: Mid-season 3, after "Blowback."

Part V, Act 6

The machines that monitored Vaughn's vital signs beeped regularly, reassuringly. The sound should have soothed her, but it only made her remember who had done this, who was responsible for this. Sloane.

"He's dehydrated," the CIA med had reported. "A little beat up. We want to keep him under for a few more hours, run some tests to be sure. But he's going to be fine."

He didn't say, I've seen much worse, because he knew she'd been much worse. So had Vaughn. The doctors used to know to expect the other if one was brought in. Now their eyes slid past her, looking for Lauren. They didn't know yet. They would, soon.

On their return, Dixon had agreed to keep Sydney's time in Lauren's body at the highest security level, on a need to know basis. Neither she nor her father had mentioned her mother. Only Sark. And Sloane. And Jack had told him about Nadia.

Sydney had not. They hadn't come to question her yet about her sister, but they would. Everything in her rebelled against telling them, but she had to, of course. Her duty. Her sister. About whom she knew nothing, except that Sloane was after her, and both he and Irina claimed to want to protect her.

What Sydney didn't know was what from.

Troubled, she watched the rise and fall of Vaughn's chest through the glass. He'd never know. He'd never know the woman who'd betrayed him in the club, who'd destroyed him by kissing another man and left him chained to a fire escape for Sloane to find, was her. The knowledge, his ignorance, left a heavy, hollow feeling in her stomach, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him. What could she possibly say? None of it made sense.

None of it sounded like her.

She pressed her fingers to her temples, a brief moment in which let weakness overtake her. The struggle she engaged in with her tears was almost relaxing. At least she was focused on something she could handle, on a fight she could win.

She didn't even know what to do now. The data disk was gone; she'd searched her clothing frantically when she'd discovered it missing, but had since accepted its loss. She had no leads. Sark had taken back his money, or what was left of it, and the Covenant was in shambles—it almost made her smile. She couldn't hunt down Sloane—she'd tried, and failed, so many times—and she wasn't sure she wanted to find her mother. The CIA would be looking for her sister. That was something she could be of some use in, she was sure of it. And if they were going to drag Nadia into this, Sydney needed to be there. To protect her.

No one had even noticed the Rambaldi disk had been missing until she and her father had told them—Marshall had been using a sample taken off of it before the transfer to investigate a possible link between the artifact and Sydney's coma—and so no one had seen "Sydney" breaking in and stealing it. Sydney wasn't sure if she was relieved r not. Lauren was good. Or at least good enough not to get caught.

Sark had let her go, Jack had said. It made Sydney livid that that woman was walking free, but wasn't a thing she could do about it.

Except take care of Vaughn.

Her father approached as she stood, staring blindly through the glass at the man she loved, and fell into place beside her, studying her profile. "You should get some sleep," he said neutrally, just the faintest hint of gruffness in his voice. She'd learned to treasure those undertones, the things that were always almost said.

"I know," she said, instead of, I'm fine.

Hesitantly, his arm came around her—he was still so uncertain when it came to touching her. As his hand came to rest, she leaned into him, put her head on his shoulder, let him be her strength. She felt his muscles relax.

"Dad," she said, looking up at him and pushing her hair behind her right ear, activating the bug killer in her slim gold hoops, "why didn't you tell Dixon and Kendall about Mom?"

"Your mother and I," he said, and there was a cold glint in his eye that took her back to days when she wasn't so sure of him, days when she had thought he was the Bad Guy, and half-wanted to turn out to be right, "have some unfinished business." He was silent a moment, as was she, the bug killer securing only empty air. Then he asked, "Why didn't you?"

"I don't know," she said, worried all over again. "I guess I didn't like the idea of Sloane being out there, unchallenged, looking for my sister."

The device in her earring beeped twice, signaling for them to cut their conversation off.

"Go home," Jack said to her. "I'll call if there's any change."

She swallowed, and nodded, and pulled away from his embrace. Leaning up, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. She felt him tense—just slightly, in surprise, possibly bemusement—as she lowered back to her feet.

"Thanks, Dad," she said.

With one last look at Vaughn, still motionless on the hospital bed, she picked up her purse and started the slow walk down the hall to the exit at which she'd left her car.

There was a package waiting for her on her kitchen table.

Immediately she pulled the gun from her shoulder holster and secured the apartment. No signs of forced entry, no evidence of anyone having been there at all except for the box: unmarked cardboard and packing tape. It didn't have to say her name on it for her to know it was hers.

She also didn't need a "From:" label to know who sent it.

She opened it cautiously, bomb defusing tools within reach and cell ready to dial the office, Marshall's extension, with the push of a single button. But there was nothing suspicious inside. At least not security-wise. The box held, well-cushioned, a smaller box, white and tied with a translucently glittery silver ribbon. The box was tied precisely; she could, to her dismay, imagine clearly the hands that had tied it in smooth, even motions.

There was a note.

Dearest Sydney, it read. Please accept the enclosed as a token of my gratitude. 'Til next we meet over the barrel of your gun— Yours, Julian.

She had to open it; she didn't have a choice. And then she had to take whatever it was in to Marshall and se what he could discover: where it was from, or who made it, and whether those pieces of information could in any way lead them to Sark. She doubted it. But it didn't change the process.

She untied the ribbon, slit the round, gold seal that the bow had previously concealed and folded the top open. Nestled inside was a simple necklace: diamonds dripped delicately at its bottom, and the links of the chain, finely, intricately wrought, curled like silk over her fingers as she lifted it to catch the light. It was, without a doubt, the most expensive thing she had ever held in her hands—or rather, held in her hands that was hers, not the government's, or the Alliance's, or (though she did not remember, of course) the Covenant's. It was only then, with the light glinting languorously off the stones, that she recognized the configuration. It matched her mother's earrings.

Sydney blew out a breath and held the necklace close in to her chest. She couldn't keep it. She didn't want to keep it. And yet . . . .

She hadn't wanted to keep her mother's earrings. No, that was a lie. She had wanted to keep them more than anything. And knowing that pierced her through—because her mother had betrayed her, had betrayed her father, the CIA, all over again. Sydney had been angry—furious—and heartbroken. But she'd clung to those earrings as if they were a lifeline. They were the evidence of the only real, true thing her mother had ever done for her. They were gone now, destroyed like everything else in the fire the night she'd been taken, so it didn't matter, in the end, but at the time she'd wished, so badly, to not want them, but she couldn't give them up.

She couldn't give this up either.

Damn it. She blinked back tears.

Carefully, she set the necklace back into its box—Marshall would want to take a look at that as well, check for any traces of the man who had packed it—and only then did she see the thin silver disk that had laid below it, a visual echo of the box's seal.

Her heart stuttered; her breath caught in anger, and with the sudden urge to laugh.

That was where her data disk had gone.

She nearly dropped the necklace in her haste. Fingers trembling, she snatched the disk up, found her reader and fumbled it inside. It was blank. She stared at it, dumbfounded. Blank.

Taking it back out, heart wooden, stomach hollow, she noticed at last the etching on the other side. She had to look through three drawers before she found a magnifying glass, then sat down at the bar to study it. The etchings were words. A second message. From Sark.

La Albufereta, it read. Southern end. 9:30 Tuesday.

That bastard.

She clutched the disk so hard her hand began to throb. He had her data. He'd taken her data. And now he was dangling it before her like she was some sort of animal. After she'd . . . .

And of course he would give it back—for a price.

Sydney picked up her cell, hit the "up" button until she reached D.

"Dad?" she said, voice preternaturally calm. "I need a visa and a plane ticket to Spain. The CIA can't recognize the name."

A/N: Let's try that whole link thing again, shall we:)

Alias Assumed