Disclaimer: Yada yada, I don't own ALIAS, yada yada, my life is so sad.

Ch. 2 The Party

"I hope you realize the sacrifice I'm making for you."

"Will, he's just my father. Its not like he's Dracula."

"You don't know that for certain. Have you ever seen him in the daytime?"

Syd and Will giggled. After an hour of begging and pleading and promising to help him take his sister tricker treating next Halloween, he consented. Now he was helping her put up streamers and set up for the party. They had a confetti fight and Will almost lost a finger when he tried to sneak some of the frosting off the cake. Finally, the guests started arriving. Sydney had been partly surprised and partly relieved when she learned that Jack had not had contact with most of his friend's in years. "At least, I'm not the only one he ignores," she thought to herself. There were now around 20 people. Except the two people she had really wanted to come hadn't show up yet, her mother's friend and of course Danny. The people she had called had gotten in touch with more people and they had spread the word that "Old Man Bristow" was having a birthday bash. Sydney was also surprised at how everybody had managed to get a present on such short notice. It had taken her several months to get her present ready. Of course, she had made this herself. She knew anything he wanted from a store he already had, as she had learned over the years. Instead, she had made a collage for him and set it in a huge frame. It had ticket stubs she had found over the years and ones he had given her when she was little so she wouldn't feel left behind. She had magazine clippings, too. She had an airplane, to symbolize his job; a tie and suit, the only piece of clothing she had seen him in the past seven or so years; a brief case, she found it depressing that most of what she knew of the man had to do with his job. But there were exceptions to the rule. She had a picture of his favorite book and his favorite actor, Bob Hope. Of course she didn't know if this had changed, but she remembered sneaking downstairs after her mother had put her to bed and watching Bob Hope movies with her dad, until her mother caught them. She also had a picture of a vanilla ice cream. She remembered when she was little that her parents would take her out for ice cream and her father would get a vanilla cone, her mother a chocolate, and she would get a twist. The joke was supposedly that she was half of each parent. But nowadays she like to think she was just like her mother. She certainly looked like her. That was one of Francie's theories, that looking at Syd reminded Jack too much of her deceased mother.

"Yo Syd!"

Will's voice snapped her back to reality.

"Can I see it one more time?"

Syd groaned. Will kept asking to see her father's gift. She got it out of the drawer where she was keeping it. "Well," she thought, "I hope my father likes it as well as Will does."

She looked back at the collage. Besides the pictures she had been thinking about there were lots more. They all bordered around the main point of the collage. A photograph, one of her favorite, of all of them. It had been taken a few months before her mother's accident. They had been at Disneyland. Syd was sitting on her father's shoulders, her mother standing beside them holding a balloon. They were all wearing Mickey Mouse ears and her father was wearing something else as uncommon as mouse ears, a smile.

"Syd, what's he doing here?" Will asked.

Syd looked up. Danny was standing in the doorway, looking and feeling a bit out of place. Syd left Will without answering his question and ran to the bewildered looking Danny. He seemed to calm down a bit when he saw her, though. "One down, one to go," she thought.

"I brought a present," Danny said holding up a long, slender box, about the size of a tie.

"It's a tie. I didn't know what else to get."

"I think you did pretty good," Sydney replied.

"Sorry I'm late. My dad was late coming home from the hospital and he was the one who was going to bring me here..."

"It's okay. I'm just glad you came," Sydney interrupted.

Danny, relieved that she wasn't mad at him, continued, "So which suit does my tie go with?"

"What?" Syd asked confused.

"Which guy's your dad?"

"Oh, he's not here yet," Syd answered.

"Good," Danny replied. "I didn't want to make a bad impression."

"Why would you be worried about that?" Syd asked hopefully.

Unfortunately, it was at this moment that Will had decided to come over and investigate, since he was obviously being left out. And he hadn't come to the birthday party of the man he feared more than Chuckie the doll just to be ignored.

"Danny, I didn't know you were coming," Will said, somewhat unfriendly.

"Syd invited me."

Will tensed up. Nobody called Syd Syd except him, and well...Francie too, but that was beside the point. The point was Danny had no right to be calling her a name reserved for her closet and dearest friends.

Conveniently, though, this was the time Sydney's mother's friend decided to make her appearance. She approached Syd slowly and cautiously, ready to bolt the moment she saw Jack. A lump formed in her throat when she first saw her. She had grown up so much.

"Sydney."

Syd turned toward the voice, thinking it was another one of her father's friends. But when she saw the woman she immediately knew that it was the woman she had spoken to on the phone. Her mind must have been playing tricks on her because she thought that the woman even looked like her mother. Which was strange since the woman had red, curly hair and wore far more makeup than her mother had. And she was wearing a lot of black. Her mother had never worn black. Except one night when Syd had woken up in the middle of the night to a noise and had gone downstairs to investigate. She had found her mother taking of her shoes and dressed entirely in black. She had asked her mother what was going on and her mother had explained to her that she had simply heard a noise outside and went out to see what it was. Sydney, only being five or so, was young enough to accept that and had gone back to bed.

"I'm your mother's friend. We spoke on the phone a few nights ago."

"Yes of course," Sydney said as she approached the woman. "I was wishing you would come. My father should be home anytime now and..."

Syd was cut short when she heard a car drive into the driveway. She rushed to the window and seeing it was her father, gave the kill signal for the lights and everyone hid. She was so distracted she didn't see the woman back away, towards the back door. Sydney's heart was beating. Even more than it had at her last "debating match".

The door opened and a tall figure stood in the doorway and quickly turned on the light.

"Surprise! Happy birthday!" screamed the guests.

Jack just stood there for a moment dumbfounded. Then his mouth that had been slightly open in surprise transformed in to a smile as he started greeting old friends. Sydney began to feel sick. That wasn't his real smile. And that meant he didn't like what she had done. It also meant that once again she had failed to live up to his expectations. She remembered when just a simple drawing of stick figures had made him proud. You would have thought it was the Mona Lisa. But not anymore. Sydney started to move towards the back of the group, wishing she could disappear. Another person was feeling the same way.

Irina saw her husband coming in her direction. She began to panic and felt for the door handle. She started to turn it, but it wouldn't move. She tried again. It was jammed. That meant the only way out was through the front. And there was no way she could leave without making a scene. Suddenly seized by an idea she rushed upstairs.

Although Syd had been darting in and out of the guests to escape the wrath of her father she couldn't keep it up for ever. She finally found refuge standing between Will and Danny. "Safety in numbers," she laughed nervously to herself. "He won't dare approach me while I'm with my friends." Of course, standing between her two male friends wasn't turning out to be so safe either. They started to get into an argument over baseball teams, although, as anyone could tell you the reason for their aggression wasn't because one thought the Red Sox didn't have a change at winning, but it did give Will one more reason not to like his competition.

Syd had thought she was pretty smart to hide among friends, but since her father didn't care about her friends or what their opinion was of him, it really wasn't that good a plan.

Syd saw her father approaching and wished for another intervention. Where was her mom's friend? She searched the room and couldn't find her. "Maybe she got scared off by my dad, too," Sydney sarcastically thought. She didn't know how right she was.

Her father was getting closer. She felt like a little goldfish being circled by a shark, just waiting for the kill. And here it comes.

"Sydney, I need to talk to you."

Syd, trying to stall some time struck upon an idea.

"Dad, this is Danny," she said pointing to her left. "And you already know Will." The two boys said hello and went right back to glowering at each other.

"Sydney, I'm not kidding," Jack said, the warning apparent in his voice.

Will, finally realizing his best friend was in need of his help thought of a much needed intervention.

"We need to get the cake," he said nudging Syd. "Please excuse us."

They took off and Syd made a promise to repay the favor by saving Will's life someday. They stuck the candles in the cake, which took more time than it should have, but Syd was in no hurry. While they got the cake ready Syd told Will what he had already suspected.

"If he doesn't appreciate all that you've done for him, he doesn't deserve to have you for a daughter," said Will.

Syd looked at Will. He was always there for her when she needed him. Unlike a certain party they had currently been discussing. Will and Sydney finally finished the cake and brought it out. As all the guests clapped, Jack begrudgingly blew out the candles. Then before her father could have a little chat with her, Sydney announced it was time for the presents and before Jack could disagree he was being handed presents faster than he could calculate. After opening all the gifts Jack ended up with nine ties, four fountain pens, an assortment of office supplies, a bottle of fine wine, and some odds and ends. Some of the presents his old college buddies got him would not be appropriate to mention and Jack tried to keep the children at the party from seeing. Then Sydney decided it was time to give him her present. Even if he didn't like her collage, at least he would appreciate all the effort and thought she put in to it.

Jack slide the frame out of the bag. He just gazed at it for awhile not saying anything. Then he put it back in the sack and absent-mindedly put it aside, like he was lost in a different world. At that moment Syd realized that nothing she could ever do would be good enough. She ran up to her room and closed the door, finally allowing herself to cry. Both boys saw her run up, but were quickly shooed out along with everybody else by Syd's nanny. The party was over. But there was still a guest left in the house.

Irina had seen the collage. She had also seen the look on Jack's face. She had wanted to follow Sydney into her room and comfort her, but she knew it wasn't her place. Besides now was her chance to leave. She had to take it. Quietly, she slipped down the stairs, only to run right back up at the sight of Jack coming out of his office. She ran into the closest room and shut the door. Looking around the room she realized she had made another stupid mistake. She was in Jack's bedroom and he was headed upstairs. Well, that would be an interesting situation. Maybe they'd make it into a scene in a movie after she was dead. She searched her brain for an escape plan. That's when she heard a knock on a door. "Oh shoot, he's here, I'm gonna be shot," she thought to herself. Then she realized, "Why would Jack knock on his own door? He must be outside Syd's door." In spite of the fact that it was as dumb an idea as her previous ones, she cracked open the door.

"Sydney, it's your father. I told you we need to talk."

There was no response.

"Sydney don't make me break down this door."

Irina suppressed a giggle. He was fully capable of doing that.

Sydney finally got up and went to the other side of the door. With as much courage as she had ever had standing up to her father she said, "What do you want?" In that tone that no parent likes to here. Irina realized what Syd was doing. She only hoped her daughter would live to regret it.

"I want to talk to you about the party," Jack continued, trying to suppress his annoyance.

"Yeah, what about it," came Sydney's reply.

Again Irina wished she could warn her daughter that when Jonathan Donahue Bristow was mad you do not, under any circumstance, provoke him. Too late.

"Get out here now!" Jack's voice boomed.

A meek Sydney opened the door and stood before her father. She looked as timid as a five-year-old. Jack, seeing this, tried to calm himself down, and when he spoke again it was in a lower, quieter voice.

"Why did you throw a party without my permission?" he asked.

"If I had asked your permission it wouldn't have been a surprise party."

Realizing that answer probably did make some sense and that she had asked the nanny, he decided the rephrase the question.

"Okay, why did you throw the party when you knew I was just coming home to get some sleep?"

Sydney stared down at the floor, examining the patterns in the floor. They resembled Egyptian symbols and the carpet was very colorful with tiny...

"Sydney, I asked you a question," he was beginning to get vexed again seeing that she was ignoring him.

Irina felt like running out and punching him. Couldn't he see that Syd was just trying to win his approval? Do something nice? Not that he'd know anything about that anymore.

"I....," Sydney started stuttering. "I don't know. I guess I just wanted to do something nice for your birthday."

Jack noticing that she was in pretty low spirits decided to let the matter drop. "Just don't do it again," he said turning toward his room.

Now it was Irina time in the spot light. Scanning the room, she threw idea after idea around. The bed was too low, she'd never get under it. The closet was to jammed, and anyway she was one step away from being claustrophobic. The bathroom was big enough, but he might go in there. Suddenly she remembered there was a window in the bathroom. She rushed in just as Jack got to the bedroom door. As he was walking in to the room she yanked open the window, climbed on to the garage roof the was a few feet below and jumped. Fortunately, she landed on her feet and scrambled to get off, hoping the neighbor woman, Mrs. Hingernew, didn't still live next door. By the time Jack went in to the bathroom and closed the window she was gone. Jack just dismissed the open window as one of Sydney's friend's goofing off. He took the bottle of wine and toasted himself to another year of miserable life and the years to come.