Dedicated to a very special guy. And I do mean "special". Mwahahahahahahah........"chokes on evil laugh"........ok, I'm good.

Ch. 12 "Light Bulb!!!"

Jack was in an uncomfortable position alright, a very awkward position. He was in a painful, not to mention embarrassing position. He was in a yoga position.

During the raid of the warehouse, the locals had gotten a tip off and had had the CIA agents running for their lives. With the authorities looking for them and no way to contact the CIA with out being made, their only way out was to sign on to a yoga cruise that was returning to the United States.

"Hey Bristow, how you doin'?" Grant asked Jack.

"You are just loving this, aren't you?" Jack replied.

Grant laughed and continued, "You should've accepted my wife's and my offer to join our yoga class last year."

He continued laughing while Jack ignored him, determined not to break his back during the next position.

Back in L.A. of the U.S. of A, someone else was stuck in a ridiculous position.

"Right foot red."

Sydney moved her foot to the nearest red, which unfortunately was on the other side of the mat. All her skill and agility from being a spy actually paid off, she thought.

"Left hand blue," Francie called out.

Even though Sydney was good, Francie was the master of the game. Of course, the girl could do a pretzel when she was six, so it wasn't a big surprise. Will, however, was having a rough time. As Sydney was moving her hand, Will fell and created a domino effect that ended with Sydney, Danny, and Will sprawled on the floor and Francie laughing like a baboon.

Trying to save his pride, Will suggested they watch a movie. He had been having bad luck with games recently, ever since his little sister had beaten him at Candyland nine years ago. The four of them went down to the den and were about to pop in a movie when the front door opened. Sydney rushed in to the living room and greeted her father. It was all he could do to help from screaming out in agony when she hugged him. He was still very sore from the cruise. Besides the physical ache, his ego was a little bruised and he was disappointed they hadn't been able to find any leads from the warehouse. After he greeted Sydney and her friends, he ran upstairs and flopped down on the bed. He was too tired and battered to even turn off the lights or crawl under the covers. In his fatigue, something in his subconscious finally clicked on. Light bulb!!! He lifted his head from the covers and leapt up from the bed, or as much as one who has endured hours of brutal yoga lessons can, and called up Grant. He had just realized something that could change everything.

Grant had just driven into the driveway of his own home when his cell rang. He thought about ignoring it, but ringing noises drove him crazy. He held out for as long as he could, but after the third ring he had to answer it. When he heard the news he was glad he was so weak. Grant backed out of the driveway and drove to the L.A. headquarters. He called Donaldson on the way. Hey, if he couldn't have the comforts of home, no one else was either.


"Do you think this makes me look fat?"

Sydney shook her head, amused at Francie's worries. Her friend looked beautiful in the off white dress with the little lace frills. Of course she had looked good in the other 15 dresses she had tried on, too.

"I don't know Syd. Maybe I should try the red one on again," Francie said as she examined herself in the mirror.

Sydney threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. Francie had been driving her crazy with all the talk about the dance and how Charlie was taking her and what shoes she was going to wear and what was Syd gonna wear and they better make sure they didn't wear the same color, but then wouldn't it be cool if their dresses matched? She had been blathering on about this stuff and about a million other dance related topics ever since Principal Sloane had announced the dance. Danny had asked Sydney to go the minute after Sloane's voice had gone silent on the intercom. She had of course accepted and after Charlie asked Francie they had planned every last detail. They had even agreed to shop for their dresses together, a choice Sydney had began to regret since Francie was let loose in the mall. While it was taking Francie 2 hours, 23 minutes, and 15 seconds exactly to find a dress, Sydney had found hers the moment she saw it on the manikin in the store window. It had taken her a few minutes to find her right size, but the end result was stunning. She had found the cutest bracelet while Francie had been debating over whether or not to have her nails done and if they should match her dress. After 1/6 of their Friday was spent, Francie decided on the red dress, with a faux diamond necklace and matching earrings and anklet. Syd didn't buy any more accessories than the bracelet. She knew the perfect necklace to wear with her dress. It was one of her mothers necklaces. It had a white rose with silver outlines on a silver chain, which would match perfectly with her sparkly silver dress. The dress was perfect, in the sense that her father would never let her borrow his credit card again perfect.

"Well, after ignoring you for most of your life, he had if coming," Francie said.

"Besides," she added. "It's not like you're only wearing it this once. You're going to wear it to his funeral too, the way your dad's working himself into an early grave."

Syd had to agree. She had hardly seen hide or hair of her father for the past month. He came home very late at night, or early morning might be more accurate, and left before Sydney normally got up. She had taken lately to waking up an hour or two before usual so she could eat breakfast with him. After he exchanged a word or two with her and gulped down his coffee, he ran out of the house as fast as he could. After he left, Sydney would go back to bed for another hour. Of course, she didn't get much sleep. It was around that time in the morning when the mystery of the paper drove her crazy. Her grandfather, who had taken up what seemed like permanent residence in the Bristow home, had been as tight lipped as her father about the whole thing. The real reason for his lack of spilling was that he had nothing to spill. He was as clueless as Sydney, if not more so. Sydney debated over asking her father what was going on, with the letter and his recent reclamation of his absentee status. At least she had Mathew, but she was getting tired of fearing for her life every time she got into their van.

Her chance to spend time with her father came at the only time she would have preferred not to. Danny's mom, who had been one of the chaperones for the dance, had needed to pull out at the last moment. Danny's great aunt was sick and his mother had gone to stay with her. So this left a vacancy and since Jack hadn't been involved in many school activities, actually to be honest he hadn't helped at one single event, Sydney's teacher thought it was time to make Mr. Bristow wake up and smell the teen spirit.

This came at the worst possible time. Donaldson, clumsy as he was, had stumbled across some unknown information about the division of the KGB that Irina had been in. Jack had finally gotten a free moment from SD-6 and his continual work at Jennings Aero Space and just when he was able to work on the lead, he had to chaperone a dance with annoying, smelly, hormonal teenagers. Oh joy!

When Sydney walked down the stairs in her dress and her mother's jewelry, as Jack noticed, he also noticed that she was growing up. With her hair down, instead of in its usual pony tail, and a little bit of makeup, she looked even more like her mother than usual. He wasn't the only one that noticed.

"Poppet, you're becoming the spitting image of your mother," Mathew said proudly. Poppet was his pet nickname for her and Sydney liked it far better than missy.

"Yes," Jack said hesitantly. "She's growing into quite a beautiful young woman," he finished, not wanting to restate the obvious again.

Sydney blushed. She wasn't use to getting all these compliments from the male species, as Francie liked to call them. Sloane complimented her on her work and Will always told her that she looked great, but that was different. Will had said her hair had looked great the time she had died it green when she was eight, so she couldn't really trust his opinion anymore.

All of the Bristows picked up Danny on the way to the dance and I mean all the Bristows. Mathew was convinced that he would not miss his granddaughter's first dance. It wasn't really her first dance, but Sydney saw no point in ruining his fun, even if he would probably do something embarrassing and ruin hers.

Sydney was the belle of the ball or at least that's what Mathew thought. He couldn't help but be proud of her. She reminded him of his late wife Nancy. She didn't look like her, but the spirit was a lot alike. He also liked to think that she got her intelligence from him, even though if you asked him where Bangkok was, he'd say he never liked those heavy metal bands in the first place.

Sydney was having so much fun that she almost forgot about the looming presence hovering in the background. It was harder however to forget the omnipresent photographer who wanted to capture every moment of her "first dance". But besides the fact that her family was really messed up and had some major issues, everything was going good, until Sloane showed up.

He had been taking a call in his office, but now was free to spread sorrow and grief. While looking around to make sure everything was okay, he happened to see Jack standing awkwardly by the punch bowl. Surprised and a little amused by the sight of Jack Bristow being intimidated, he walked over to greet him. When Jack saw him approaching he mumbled something inaudible under his breath, but I'm sure it was something like, "I have to put up with him everyday at work and now this? Haven't I suffered enough?"

They exchanged hellos and Sloane was about to ask Jack why he was there, when Mathew walked up to the punch bowl and poured himself a glass.

"So Jack, what do I owe the pleasure of your presence...aahhh!!"

Right after Mathew had poured himself a glass of punch, a jazzy song had started and Mathew had gotten so carried away in dancing and swinging his arms that the punch had gone flying out of his cup and on to the expensive, almost Armani suit that belonged to none other than Mr. Arvin Sloane.

"I'm so sorry," Mathew apologized, sincerely embarrassed.

It took all of Jack's abilities not to laugh his head off. It took all of Sloane's abilities not to knock Mathew up the side of the head or worse.

Besides making a beautiful red polka dotted pattern on Sloane, the punch had spilled on the floor too. "Get someone to clean this mess up!" Sloane yelled, somewhat impatiently.

One of the other chaperones ran to get a mop and ran into Irina. One of the staff had been sick and Irina had taken over their shift. This was the third mess tonight and the other two had been before the dance even started. She walked in with the cleaning supplies and almost dropped them. She was use to seeing Sydney almost everyday at school, but she still wasn't use to seeing Jack. One thing she wasn't use to seeing was Arvin Sloane jumping around like a nervous rabbit and...was that Jack's father? Although she was suppose to go clean up the mess she didn't trust herself to be in the midst of everyone from her past.

Jack wasn't the only one who was having trouble not laughing at the current situation. It was all Mathew could do not to laugh at the dignified Sloane being very undignified. Then all of the sudden he began to fell funny. "Jack...," he started.

"What is it?" Jack asked, somewhat distracted by the interesting spectacle of Sloane stomping off towards the bathroom to somehow salvage his suit.

Jack was brought away from this amusing sight when his father didn't answer. "Dad," he said as he turned around.

Mathew had a strange look on his face. As Jack went towards him, Mathew pitched forward. Jack caught him and yelled for someone to call an ambulance as he tried to bring his unconscious father to.


To Rach5 and Eyghon: Love to read reviews like yours! And please continue to review. I'm gonna need your help after the next chapter is posted.