Disclaimer: I do not own Alias because if I did, ABC would have fired me for waiting so long to write more. But then again, ABC would also have had a group of writer's toscrew up the storyfor me while I was suffering from Writer's Block.
Note: The things that are happening in the present are in normal type and those that happened in the past are in italics. Just in case you didn't get that. I also want to say sorry for taking soooooo bloody long to come up with this. Also, it's a little different from what happened in the series so all I can say it, "Thank goodness for creative license!"
Ch. 15 "Holy Flashbacks"
"But he's sooo old!"
Francie sighed. "That's not the point. He's got that certain something and you've got to admit his voice is amazing."
Will just shook his head. He would never understand girls.
Sydney smiled. Ever since Francie had seen the movie "Die-Hard" she had become a die-hard fan of Alan Rickman's and it was killing them. She had subjected her friends to a 25 minute description of the movie before Will had threatened to throw her out of a window.
But Sydney didn't really mind. It was nice that some things, like Francie having a new obsession every month, stayed the same. Too bad everything else hadn't.
Danny hadn't even believed her at first. He had even thanked her for trying to cheer him up. But after he had realized that she wasn't joking, he had just stared at her. She still wasn't sure if he believed her now. She wasn't even sure where he was now.
He had stayed away from her for the rest of the day. Then the next day, he wasn't even at school. Sydney hadn't really thought anything about it until she had seen the janitors clearing out Danny's locker, with Sloane overseeing the undertaking. He obviously didn't think they could clean out a locker without his supervision.
"Mr. Sloane, what's going on?" Sydney had asked.
Sloane turned and looked at her with something akin to pain in his eyes. "Daniel Hect has transferred to another school," he said, conveniently not looking Sydney in the eyes and instead focusing on the top of her head.
Sydney was speechless. Transferred? In one day? It didn't make sense. Sydney was use to things making sense. Well, except for the secret message, her father, Marshall…..okay, so a lot of things in her life didn't make sense. But this was weird, even for her.
"But...why?" she asked.
"This isn't the place for this conversation," Sloane responded. "Let's go to my office."
Sydney followed Sloane down the hall to his office. She couldn't understand it. Danny had said that since his parents were divorcing, his father might move back to Pennsylvania, but surely Danny would have stayed here with his mom? Even if he did decide to move, he surely wouldn't have done it in a day? And even though he probably thought she was delusional, wouldn't he have called and told her himself? Sydney shook her head. She was getting a headache.
When they reached Sloane's office, he sat behind his desk and gestured for her to have a seat as well.
He clasped his hands together. Sydney gulped without realizing it. If Sloane clasped his hands, the situation was serious.
"What's the number one rule about being a spy, Sydney?"
Sydney didn't see what this had to do with the situation, but she answered none the less. "Secrecy," she said automatically. It had been practically programmed into their heads.
Sloane nodded. "In order to do what we do, in order to protect ourselves and others, we have to maintain complete secrecy about this organization and it's operatives. You broke that rule Sydney."
Now Sydney was not a naturally violent person. She hadn't even really liked watching Looney Toons when she was little because the blowing up of and heavy objects falling on cartoon characters wasn't really entertaining. But suddenly she found herself wanting to do very violent things with a stapler and Sloane .
"So you had Danny suspended?" Sydney shouted at her principal.
Sloane flinched. He wasn't used to being yelled at. Except when Emily yelled at him for forgetting to take out the garbage.
Sloane stared at an imaginary wrinkle in his shirt and smoothed in out before answering.
"Yes."
Sydney stood up abruptly. "Well, congratulations. Your student body has just decreased by two students in one day." After saying this she walked out of Sloane's office.
It took a few minutes for Sydney's statement to sink into Sloane's small, but thick head.
"Are you alright Syd?"
The question brought Sydney back to the real world, or present real world as it was.
"I'm sorry Will. What?"
Will and Francie exchanged looks. Syd had been this way for the past two weeks. They knew she really missed Danny, but there was a point (and Syd had crossed it) where it had become obsessive and Francie knew obsessive. She had a new obsession every month. But she usually talked about it until she either got tired of it or more likely, Will told her to shut up. Syd just stared off into space with a sad look on her face.
"We were uh," Will didn't know how to say what he wanted to say, so he chickened out, "wondering if you wanted to go to the mall tomorrow after school."
Sydney shook her head. "I can't, I have dance class."
Will look puzzled. "Since when?"
Sydney shook her head in disbelief. No matter how many times you told Will something, you could always count on him to forget it. So of course, she trusted him with all her most important secrets. "Secrets," Syd thought. That's what started this whole mess.
The first two days after she had walked out of Sloane's office, she had pretended to be sick. But by the third day, Matthew hadn't bought her story. So after he dropped her off at school, she waited until he left and then she had took off. She spent the day in the park, caught up on some reading, fed some pigeons, and thought of all the awful things she could do to get revenge. Then, she showed back up outside the school entrance in time for Matthew to pick her up.
The next day she did the same thing except instead of reading, having gotten tired of reading, she decided to put her spy skillz to use. She had tried to call Danny a thousand times, but his phone was disconnected. She had even called the hospital where Mr. Hect had worked, but all they could or would tell her was that he had moved. She was puzzling over all this when she felt a presence behind her. She turned around and saw Matthew.
"Poppet…."
Sydney didn't wait for Matthew to begin to lecture. She took off running and as much as her grandfather wanted to go after her, he knew that he wasn't the person for this job. He took out a cell phone, a contraption he had finally learned how to use, and dialed. He needed reinforcements.
"Earth to Syd. Hello in there. Idiots say what?"
Sydney jumped. She really needed to stop having flashbacks.
"What?"
Will and Francie started laughing and it took Sydney a few moments to catch on. She should have felt offended, but it wasn't like it was the first time she had done something dumb.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Sydney said, accompanying each insult with a kick to a poor defenseless tree. Running from her grandfather had not been a smart idea. Neither had skipping school. But she couldn't go back now. After all she was a Bristow. Being stubborn flowed through her blood.
It was getting kind of cold now. Sydney hugged herself. As if she wasn't already miserable enough, her stomach began to growl. Then a noise, accompanied by a red flashing light, made her forget her previous problems. "The cops are after me. I'm a fugitive," she thought. She was about to make another dash for it, when she heard a car pull up beside her. Thinking it was all over, she closed her eyes and stood still. No point in running and having them shoot her down.
"Sydney!"
Syd's eyes opened and she turned to look at the driver, who was not a policeman, but her father.
"Daddy?"
"Get in the car," was all Jack said in response.
Sydney nodded meekly and got in. Now she wished the cops had caught her. Being locked up with hairy, dangerous criminals would be preferable to the wrath of Jonathan Bristow.
She was so lost in thought that she didn't even realize for awhile that Jack was driving something akin to his father. Except he wasn't hitting anything. Sydney finally came out of her thoughts when they pulled up to an old warehouse.
"Get out of the car," Jack said.
Syd undid her seatbelt and followed Jack into the warehouse. As if she wasn't already confused enough, she was even more so when she saw that there was a small group of people waiting for them inside the building.
"Bristow," a bald man greeted said, shaking hands with her father. "I'm glad you came."
"I didn't have much choice in the matter," Jack grumbled.
The man turned to address Sydney. "I'm agent Kendall. I'm the director of a black opps division of the CIA. Do you know what that is?"
Sydney wanted to slap him. Did she look like she was four? Before she could respond though, Jack did it for her.
"Kendall, we didn't come down here to get a vocabulary lesson."
Kendall, obviously insulted, gestured to one of the people who had been standing behind him. "This is agent Romari. She's come here, directly from Langley."
"Langley?" Sydney said. "As in Langley, the head honcho of the whole CIA, Langley?"
"Yes. That very Langley," the woman answered.
Jack rolled his eyes. He felt like he was in some dumb teen movie.
Agent Romari continued, "I spoke to Langley this morning and he has decided not to acquiesce your request."
"Means no," Kendall offered.
"Great," thought Jack. "Now I'm in a Johnny Depp movie." Then Romari's words sunk into Jack's head. "What do you mean he said no?" Jack bellowed.
The other agents winced. Bristow had lungs.
"He's not letting you and Sydney into the Witness Protection," Romani explained. Before Jack could ask, she answered his question. "You're too valuable an asset to loose Jack and now that there's a possibility to have a seconds double agent inside Sloane's operation…"
As Jack was yelling some words that he probably shouldn't have used while addressing people who worked for the government, things were finally piecing together for Syd. Trying to prevent her brain from exploding from information overload, she went through each thing one by one. This is what was going through Syd's head….
1) She didn't work for the CIA.
2) Her dad worked for Sloane.
3) Her dad also worked for the real CIA and was therefore, a double agent.
4) How did I not figure this out?
5) Francie still has my "Reliant K" CD.
Syd knew she shouldn't be thinking about such trivial stuff as music, but could she help it that one of the agents looked like Matt Thiessen, the lead guitarist in Reliant K?
When Syd tuned back in, her father was still arguing.
"I'm not subjecting my daughter…"
"Daddy?" Syd interrupted.
Jack was quiet for the first time in the last 8 minutes and turned to look at Sydney.
"If we do this together, we can take down Sloane twice as fast," Sydney explained. "Besides it's not like we can fight Langley."
Jack looked like he was about to argue, but a few words from Syd could convince him better than an armed group of CIA agents.
"Alright," Jack said turning back to Kendall. "What do we have to do?"
