Title: Beyond all limits

Summary: Sydney attempts to abduct Daniel Hecht, but Elliot stands in her way.

Disclaimer: I don't own alias, I only own the characters you don't know.

Timeline: AU after the first one

Rating: R

A/N: I haven't updated for a while as I was having problems getting on to my account and I've just had my GSCEs so I didn't have time to write, but now I've finished High School and will have a lot more time to write.

Chapter Ten

The operation was quick and orderly. Sydney and her masked team stormed the CIA building, taking out the security detail first with tranquilizers, Sydney had insisted on tranquilizers, as they weren't there to kill, and they had rounded up all of the staff in the main hall while two of Lauren's agents went to obtain Daniel Hecht.

Sydney stood unmasked in the main hall with various CIA agents and staff around her, some had been friends, some were new faces and had no idea why the more experienced agents were so wary of her, but none of them mattered, because two agent were missing.

She went to a computer beside her and started the internal intercom system and spoke in to the headset she had removed from an agent. "Agents Gable and Julian Sark, I know you're both in the building, you have five minutes to be in front of me or else you're colleagues will pay the price, starting with agent Minear."

Sark grabbed the sleeve of Elliot's suit jacket as she went to head for the door of the utility closet they had taken refuge in. "She's going to kill Zach!" Elliot hissed, fear and despair showing in her eyes.

"If we go out there now it's over. We have to think logically and make a plan." Sark insisted. "Sydney isn't some bumbling terrorist who'll negotiate. She's the best agent this agency has had in the past ten years and that makes her dangerous."

"Wrong." Elliot pulled her gun out and aimed it at Sark. "She's second best." Sark stared down at the barrel of the .9mm Elliot was holding.

"Elliot, she truly brings out the worst in you."

"Go, give your self up." Elliot ordered, putting the gun back in its holster. "I need a minute or two, then I'll be right there…please Sark, I've mentored you since the day I saw you in Kendall's office." Sark sighed and headed silently for the door. He paused with his hand on the handle.

"Don't die." He asked simply and left to hand himself in.

When one of Lauren's agents threw Sark to his knees in front of Sydney she wasn't satisfied. "Where is Elliot Gable?" Sark didn't answer and she struck him causing him to strike his head off the floor. She pulled him back up by the shirt and practically growled in his face. "Where. Is. She?"

"She isn't here." Sark replied, staring Sydney in the eyes. "She left an hour ago."

Sydney shook her head and struck him again. "Not good enough Sark." She pulled out her own gun and with two shots Agent Zach Minear fell to the ground with two shots to the heart.

The agents around them screamed or watched in frozen terror as their colleague lay dead on the floor. After the second shot Sydney's men aimed their weapons towards the entrance to the hall where Elliot stood in plain sight holding a pistol with an M68 sight on it directly at Sydney. Sydney looked down to her chest where a red dot sat just above her heart from the M68.

"You're going to shoot me?" Sydney asked. "When there are at least ten good marksmen aiming at you?" A small grin slowly spread over Elle's lips as she answered.

"Yeah, you see Bristow, I'm an excellent marksmen. I pull the trigger and you're definitely dead. You've just killed my partner and closest friend and so I'm feeling slightly pissed, so just give me an excuse to fire."

Sydney could see determination in her eyes but the tears threatening to spill out were also clearly evident. "Do you remember Brazil, 1999?" Sydney asked as her own gun aimed at Elliot. Elliot nodded and her smile was almost sincere. "After the target offered to let me live if I joined his organization, you killed him thirty seconds after I refused. You told me even a good agent could change their loyalties, but a great agent would die for what they believe in. Do you still want to be a great agent?"

Tears were rolling down Sydney's cheeks as she held her gun at Elle, her first partner and oldest, still living, friend. "Do you?" Elliot choked out. "It's not too late Syd."

When the two agents returned with Danny bound and gagged Sydney shook her head. "I'm afraid it is." She fired without warning and Elliot was caught off guard. She fell beside Zach with her pistol dropped out of reach. After firing Sydney rushed over to her fallen friend and knelt beside her.

"I love you." She whispered in Elliot's ear as she wrapped her arms around Sydney with her last ounce of strength. "But it's too late." As Elliot's eyes closed Sydney gently laid her on the floor and got back to her feet.

"Move out." She ordered her agents and the men started to retreat to the exit with their guns still targeting the CIA staff. Sydney was the last to retreat, with one last glimpse at Elliot and Zach as they lay only centimetres apart. She knew she should have been with them; they were her partners, her friends and now her victims.

When she returned to Lauren after restraining Danny and leaving him in a locked cell she looked troubled and as she slumped silently in a chair Lauren knew something had gone on. "What happened?"

"Agents Elliot Gable and Zachary Minear were eliminated." Sydney muttered bitterly.

"By who?" Lauren's voice was choked, she had at one time loved Elliot and now she was being told of her death.

"Me." Sydney replied even quieter as she looked at the floor.

Lauren knelt down beside her and held Sydney's head in her hands, causing her to look up in to her eyes. "Sydney, after tomorrow none of this will hurt anymore, we will have unlimited power and I can take care of you sweetheart. I promise, just one more day, can you do that for me?" Sydney nodded slowly.

"How?" Syd finally muttered after a few moments of silence. Lauren smiled like the cat that got the cream and held Sydney's hands as she talked.
"Danny was working on developing a computer programme before the CIA arrested him, if it's successful it will create any computer I log on to with the details a master computer to any computer connected to the Internet. It will not allow the user to access a program, check their mail or even start a game of solitaire without permission from the master computer. It will render the world's economy helpless unless we get exactly what we want."

"And what is that?" Sydney asked, her gaze hollow and bitter from years of anguish.

"Everything and anything." Lauren replied.

"They'll hack the program." Sydney objected, she no longer felt she could believe in any of Lauren's, or a terrorist's, plans or dreams, she'd destroyed them all easily before, and someone at the CIA was bound to take her place. There was always going to be another Elliot Gable or Sydney Bristow who would defend their country and stop the enemy.

"The password changes randomly every four seconds, only I will have access to the password." Lauren explained.

"How?" Sydney asked, Lauren pulled away and headed to the door to pay a visit to Danny. She smiled as she reached the door and turned to face Sydney.

"I trust you luv, but if I told you that what would stop you taking me out once we had the program and using for yourself?"

"Trust?" Sydney replied staring in to her eyes. "We are partners after all Hun. Lauren smiled and left the room. She may have loved Sydney Bristow but with the volatile personality she had developed she had no intentions of trusting her without doubt.