SYDNEY BRISTOW'S HOME

1300 h

"Now, tell me about Lauren Reed."

Innocent enough words, really. Not really the type of thing to put someone in a murderous rage. And Sydney didn't get that kind of anger built up easily. In her life it was easy to hold grudges, but easier on you if you didn't. But Scully's innocent words stabbed at her fragile heart. Ever since her return from the not-really-but-should-have-been-for-all-the-pain-it-caused dead, the mere mention of the woman's name set Sydney's blood to boiling.

Taking a deep breath, Sydney approached the situation like she would a debrief. Factual, simple, and fast.

"Until about three years ago, she was a low level NSC peon who got promoted on daddy's good name. She was also working for the Covenant at that time, though higher up and, with them, trading on mommy dearest's rep. Lauren met, seduced, and married Michael Vaughn, who was not in the most stable of mindsets at the time, and her brainwashing technique was superb, making her biggest chore the task of keeping her lies straight. Then things got complicated when I came back."

"Back from what?" Scully asked.

"Technically? A covert op that I didn't sign up for and, like all other things in my life, seemed to be preordained," Sydney said. "But, if you want to get literal, I came back from the dead."

Scully nodded, her icy blue eyes widening a little, but she didn't say anything.

"I had been undercover in the Covenant, tricking them into thinking that they had tricked me into thinking that I was an assassin named Julia Thorne."

"Tricking them into thinking that they had tricked you into thinking…?" Scully frowned, her pen poised over her notepad that was already full of notes.

Sydney decided to start at the beginning. With Allison. "There was a machine that could alter DNA, making a person look and talk and… be another person. The people responsible for the device used it to replicate my best friend, Francie Calfo. She was killed, and her double was inserted into my life seamlessly. My life had undergone more changes in that one month than I can count… SD-6, being able to be with Vaughn, graduating… I didn't notice the changes in her. It culminated in a fight that tore our apartment to shreds. I shot her, and passed out. While I was out I was taken by the Covenant. They replaced my body with another woman who had my DNA inserted in her teeth, and they managed to save Allison's—the double's—life, and replaced her with the real Francie's body. Then they set my apartment on fire, faking my death," Sydney said, reciting a litany that she had gone through many times before, though it was slightly different each time. "The Covenant held me; they brainwashed me. Or, they tried to. When I was little my father used a program that he had developed for the CIA to train children to be spies. It had some kind of failsafe against psychological reconditioning. But, to save my life, I played along, and, after gaining their trust, I contacted an old friend who made me do the whole double agent deal again."

"Like when you were at SD-6?" Scully asked.

"More or less," Sydney nodded. "Only… the things I saw… the things I was forced to do… they got to me. And it wasn't like they didn't get to me at SD-6, because they did, but back then I had Vaughn to turn to when the shit hit the fan. I couldn't go to him, though, because he thought I was dead and he was living the Barbie dream life with Ms. Reed. It all got to be too much, so I went toHong Kongwhere an experimental treatment was about to go public. I had the last two years of my memory erased, not wanting to know about my time as Julia. The first thing I actually remember after the fight with Allison is waking up in an alley in Hong Kong and, after going to a CIA safehouse, Vaughn coming in with a ring on his finger."

"Hell of a way to wake up," Scully muttered.

"That's what I said," Sydney smirked.

They shared a small smile before going back to the task at hand.

"For the next eight months I worked with Vaughn and Lauren, barely coping at times, throwing myself into my work others. Then we found out that there was a mole in the Ops Centre and then Senator Reed died."

"I thought he killed himself," Scully said.

"That's what we were led to believe. Actually, we were close to nailing down Lauren as the mole, but her partner, Julian Sark, managed to convince Lauren to kill her father and frame him as the mole. It worked, too, though I didn't buy it. I mean, the woman stole the love of my life, I was a bit bitter, ya know?" Sydney said. "So I kept looking into it, and that led to fighting with Vaughn, which I hate, but the fight led to him checking out Lauren's luggage and he found the gun used to kill a suspect who had intel we needed. After that we set a trap for Lauren, knowing she was the mole and wanting to know whom else she was working with. That led us to her mother, and, later, to Sark."

"So how did she end up in Ireland?" Scully asked.

"I'm getting to that," Sydney said. "Anyway, Vaughn got stabbed and I thought Lauren had done it. There was a location, in Palermo, that was supposed to have an artefact that the CIA and a branch of the government that you're not cleared to know about wanted. I went there, knowing Lauren would be there because the Covenant wanted the artefact as well, and we fought. She was going to kill me, and Vaughn showed up at just the right moment. He gave her a chance, warned her he would shoot her if she didn't lower her gun, and when she made a move to pull the trigger, he shot her. She fell, but kept reaching for her gun, so he shot her again. I wasn't really thinking, so I don't know how many times he shot her," she lied, "but she fell down the shaft where the Covenant was digging. Vaughn needed medical attention for his stab wound, the flight from LA and his little escape trick from the hospital not doing much for his collapsed lung, so I got him to a hospital and called in a team to get Lauren's body. When they got to the dig site it was gone. It's not a top priority thing, so the CIA hasn't investigated the lack of a body. There are other things out there that are worse than body snatchers. The first I heard about her being in Ireland was when your AD called me. I don't know how she got there. I can't help you with anything else."

Scully nodded. "I just want to clarify a few points."

"Which points?" Sydney asked sceptically.

"Well, this procedure you endured, for one. And the doubling procedure, as well."

"Well, being a MD, you would be into the doctor stuff, wouldn't you?" Sydney said, almost sounding upset that she hadn't pieced together that little nugget earlier. "I'll get you're the file on the doubling. All I really got out of that ordeal was two dead friends. And the procedure that I went through… I've tried looking into it since I got back and found out what I did. But the doctor disappeared soon after I surfaced in this life again, and I don't have any records to help me look. There's a man you can call if you want to try to get more, but I doubt he'll give you much. Kendall likes his secrets."

"Kendall?"

"The friend I contacted when I was faking Julia," Sydney said. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Vaughn should have been back from his run a few minutes ago. She'd give him at least half an hour before she got worried, though. Chances were good that he just stopped for ice cream or something. If there was one thing her man loved after a good run, it was the disgusting concoction of blueberry-bubble-gum ice cream from the café a little ways down the beach from her place. She could barely stand to kiss him after he'd inhaled that little guilty pleasure. Barely, but not quite. She'd spent more than enough time not kissing Michael Vaughn; now that he was hers once more she wasn't going to let something as small as goofy ice cream obsessions get in the way of the feeling of his lips playing against hers.

"And who does this friend work for?" Scully asked, making a note of Kendall's name on her legal pad.

"Can't say," Sydney said with a Mona Lisa smile.

"This is why the FBI and the CIA don't get along, Agent Bristow. This I would tell you but then I would have to kill you mentality you all seem to have drilled into you during training," Scully said bitterly.

"I didn't go through standard CIA training. If you've read my file, like I'm sure you have, you'd know that my training came from SD-6, a branch of the Alliance. I was trained by a group without a country, under the guise of the CIA. I don't have any intention of doing you any harm, Agent Scully. But, even if your superiors don't believe in it, there are certain levels of clearance that you just don't have and if I told you some of the things I know I would be breaking federal law. As an agent with the FBI, I would think you would appreciate my situation."

"I do appreciate your situation, but for all I know this Kendall person works at the Starbucks you frequent," Scully said acidicly.

Sydney bit back a scathing retort and took a breath. "I realise that, for clarity purposes, you need all the details, Agent Scully. But there is nothing to investigate here. Lauren Reed was shot by Michael Vaughn while he was trying to save me from her. I don't know what happened to her body, and if this has caused anyone any kind of pain, I'm sorry for that, but I'm not going to sit around and be interrogated because the woman who tried to ruin my life and, when that didn't make her world sunshine and daffodils, she tried to end my life. She killed countless innocent people, betrayed this country, and ended up dying for her crimes. It was a less humane way than she would have had she gone through a trial, but the end result is the same. She's dead, her father—arguably the only good person in her family, and that's not saying much because Senator Reed was involved in a lot of his own shit—is dead, Olivia Reed is working for the Covenant and hasn't been seen in months, and Julian Sark, the only person I think willingly loved Lauren, is in the CIA's custody."

"How was Mr. Sark arrested?" Scully asked.

"He and Lauren set eight bombs at different locations around the Ops Centre. Lauren placed them there, and shot a very good friend of mine, and, after stealing intel from us, Sark blew the charges as she escaped. Agent Eric Weiss and some people from Tech Ops tracked Sark's location and he was arrested with the codes to the bombs on his laptop in his lap."

"And who was shot?" Scully asked.

"Marshall Flinkman. He was at SD-6 with me, and, after the take-down, he came to work for the CIA. He is our tech guy. He can do insane things with household items."

"Such as?" Scully inquired.

Sydney glanced around until she found her briefcase. She went into it's black leather depths and pulled out a pair of sunglasses with a lock-pick set in the arms like he had done for her years before on her first mission as a double agent in Russia. She then pulled out a more updated version of the Artful Dodger and demonstrated it's power on the curtains she had been meaning to replace anyway. "Marshall is brilliant, and his inventions have saved my ass more times than I can count. He's fine, now. His son doesn't understand why he can't play with him the same way he used to, but once his stomach muscles regain their strength he'll be back to normal."

"I'm glad to hear it," Scully said, and Sydney found herself wanting to believe the other woman.

"Look, I get that the moving of the body is not a good thing, that's established. And, even though I'm not the most impartial judge on Lauren Reed, I think what happened to her was more than due after everything she did. So why are you investigating this?" Sydney asked. "I don't see a case."

"When a Senator's daughter dies, it's FBI business. Mulder and I pulled the short straws, the draw unfairly stacked against us because we were already investigating a case centred around Galway and, seen as that was where Ms. Reed was found, we got the assignment. And I know I mixed my metaphors back there but it's been a long day and I'm not at my peak."

After taking a good look at Scully, Sydney could see the signs of jet lag clearly in the small woman's face—dark circles under her eyes that were carefully hidden beneath make-up that had faded somewhat and made the black circles turn a bruise-grey, slumping shoulders under the exquisite Donna Karen suit—and, being a sufferer of said malady more times than there were numbers for, Sydney took pity on the FBI agent.

"You know, I've got some stuff to do today. If you have any more questions, do you think they could wait until tomorrow?" Sydney asked.

"I'll come back tomorrow," Scully said, hiding her gratitude behind enigmatic eyes. She gathered up her things and put them away, stopping briefly to scratch Herman's floppy ears before leaving.

Sydney followed her out, watching as the petite red head got in a yellow SUV and started screaming into her cell phone as she pulled away from the curb with ease. As the sport utility vehicle disappeared around the corner, Sydney smiled at the way Agent Scully seemed to have a great friendship with the gas peddle.


Sorry about the delay. This chapter has been sitting in my Documents folder for almost two weeks. I kept thinking I'd posted it. Sorry.

M