After checking on her daughter, Sydney made her way out to the front porch where Vaughn was waiting patiently for her. "You needed to talk to me?"
"I can't do this, Syd."
"Can't do what?"
"Live here for an undefined amount of time with that man." Vaughn's gaze shifted to where Sark was currently playing catch with his son. "He's starting to corrupt my child."
"Stop being foolish, Michael," Sydney said, taking a seat on the chair next to his. "We've been here for all of two weeks. He's done nothing to you."
"Except goad me into an argument at every turn."
Sydney laughed. "You're an easy target. He can't help it."
"What happened to you? The Sydney I knew would have killed that man at the drop of a hat."
"I love him," she answered simply. "And you'll learn to tolerate him. There's nothing we can do about the situation until more information is known."
Sark came running over to the lounging couple with Tyler Vaughn on his heels. "Your son already has a pretty good arm, Vaughn. I'm quite surprised."
Vaughn just gave him a glare and turned his attention to his son. "How about you and I go inside, Ty, and see what your mom is cooking up in the kitchen?" Tyler nodded emphatically, sure that he had smelled cookies a few minutes earlier.
Once Vaughn had left, Sark pulled Sydney up out of her chair, sat down in it, and pulled her back down into his lap. "It seems you and I can't get a moment of alone time since we had our daughter." He sighed. "And it isn't even Hope doing all the interrupting."
"I know it's hard on you to live with the Vaughns. But it really shows that I was right about there being a good man inside you somewhere."
"That remains to be seen. I might end up killing the man of the family before nightfall." He leaned in to kiss his wife lightly on the back of her neck.
"Just don't get any blood on the carpet. It's a pain to get out." She pulled herself up off his lap and started to walk into the yard.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
She turned around to see him pouting and fought the urge to laugh. "I was going to walk around the house."
"To scan for threats."
"My mother said that there might be people trying to get at us."
"Do you really think they're going to be coming for us so soon? We've only been here two weeks."
"I know. I guess you can say it's my motherly instinct rearing its ugly head. I just… want… to… be… sure." Her voice faded off at the end of her sentence as her eye caught on something.
Sark got up off the chair and walked over to her side. "What is it, Syd?"
"I don't know. I just got a bad feeling. Like there's something going on around us that we don't know about." Sydney caught a flash of something out of the corner of her eye. She continued to act nonchalant while muttering under her breath, "Over there by the trees."
"Go inside and get the children," Sark said. He was already reaching into his pocket for his gun.
Sydney didn't argue but gave him a small kiss on the cheek to keep up appearances of normality and made her way into the house. She chanced a small glance out of the first window she passed and saw her husband standing in the same spot she left him while scanning the distance.
"Michael! Lauren!" she called out.
"We're in the kitchen, Syd," she heard Vaughn yell back.
Already climbing the stairs to get her daughter, she called down, "Could you get Tyler and meet me in the basement? My husband is working on a little piece of business out in the yard, and I thought now might be a good time to discuss what we're going to do later today."
She could hear a hesitation in the reply. Obviously Lauren and Vaughn were dissecting what she was saying. If she thought it was safe, she would have just yelled to them that there were intruders somewhere out in the forest. However that would only work on the fairly large assumption that these people had not gotten close to the house and bugged it sometime earlier.
"Sounds fine. We'll just grab some cookies and meet you down there," Lauren finally said.
Sydney let out a deep breath, glad that they understood what she had been saying, and leaned down to scoop her daughter out of the crib. "Shhh, Hope. It's okay. Mommy's just going to take you to somewhere we know you'll be safe. And then I'm going to go find Daddy and do a little work." She sighed. "Mommy just loves it when the work follows her home, doesn't she?"
She made her way down to the basement, taking the time to shut the door behind her entirely. She handed her daughter off to Lauren after she had descended down the stairs. Checking to make sure the soundproofing system was working correctly, she turned to explain. "I saw something suspicious out in the yard. My parents warned me that people might figure out our location. Sark is checking it out. Watch Hope and Tyler. Worst case scenario, get them in a car and get out of here. We'll all get in contact later. They are our top priority in this." She grabbed a couple guns out of a locked cabinet on the wall and turned to her housemates. "Don't do anything stupid."
"The same goes for you," Lauren said, bouncing little Hope lightly.
Sydney nodded and made her way back up the stairs. Activating the multiple locks on the door, she checked the window. Sark wasn't standing still anymore. He was hustling his way across the yard. Knowing that whatever was going on she couldn't be a part of at this moment, she walked around the house checking the situation from all the windows.
A creak in the living room floorboards put her on edge. She pushed herself up against the wall and slowly peaked around the corner. There were two men in all black gear making their way towards her. Not only that, but they appeared rather heavily armed.
"Who do they think they're coming after?" she thought to herself. They were just four grown-ups and two children, not an army.
Guessing now was better than later, she entered the room, taking a quick shot at the first man and connecting with his knee. She aimed a kick at the second man and felt his face through the sole of her shoe. By that time, the first man had recovered and fired a few shots at her.
"Can't you give me a break?" she screamed. "I just gave birth to my daughter three weeks ago. I'm not in the best shape." When the man laughed at her, she punched him hard in the face, knocking him out cold. "Though I guess you could say I'm in good enough shape."
She was turning to look at the other man when she heard the distinct sound of a safety being clicked off.
"I wouldn't move if you want to make it out of this alive, Miss Bristow."
Catching something rather interesting in the mirror, she held her hands up in the air without hesitation. "You know, I really thought I kicked you a lot harder than that."
"You must be losing your edge."
"Must be," she said with a knowing grin.
A shot rang out through the house, and she watched the man holding a gun on her crumple to the floor. Her husband was standing over his limp body.
"Where have you been?"
He leaned over the man and drew out another gun from his belt. "I wouldn't have waited so long if I knew that your ass needed saving."
"I would have figured out something. Is that a new model?"
"I think so," he said, slipping it into the holster he had on. "We can try it out later. Right now we have a problem."
She sighed. "What now?"
"There are at least twenty men outside. I took out a few of them, but that's about all I could manage without alerting them to my presence. We're going to need Lauren and Vaughn on this one."
"We can't. They're watching the children. It's just you and me."
He nodded. "At least I know my daughter is safe."
Sydney looked around to check out of the window. Sure enough, there were a handful of men making their way towards the house. "You mean you actually trust Vaughn with your daughter?"
Sark grinned at her. "He's growing on me."
They silently worked their way through the house and exited the back door into the yard. Once they were safely hidden by the cover of trees, Sark leaned in to his wife. "I set up a few surprises. Be mindful of yourself."
Before she could question him as to what he meant, there was an explosion from about fifty yards east of them. Two seconds later, there was another one coming from the west and one from the front yard.
"I guess that narrows down the odds," he said with a laugh.
"What did you do?" she said as they began to advance to the sights of the explosions.
"I used my time wisely as always, darling. Managed to set up a few motion-censored mines while decreasing their ranks all before coming to rescue you."
"A man who can multi-task, I like that." She stopped and began to walk in the opposite direction of Sark. "I'll go this way while you continue on. Meet me in the front of the house."
Sark nodded and blew his wife a kiss. "You're such a sap," she hissed at him as she ran off.
While he meticulously picked off the remaining agents, he thought that comment over in his head. He had become a little soft the past few years. Most of it could be attributed to Sydney, but a portion of it was by his choosing. He hadn't really liked the hardened person he had become since adolescence. He had seen many men his age grow up with happiness in their eyes and hearts, always wondering why he couldn't have the same privilege.
And then Sydney came along. With some out of this world persistence, she convinced him that he might have missed his first chance at that happiness, but she was personally there to deliver a second. He hadn't believed her at first, except she kept coming back until he would admit she was right.
He would love her to the end of time for that.
Sitting down on the front porch stairs, he waited for his wife to join him.
Thankfully, she didn't leave him in suspense for long. He had been sitting down for less than a minute when she came jogging around the opposite side of the house. "All clear on my end."
"Mine, too." He motioned for her to sit down. "How many did you see?"
"Five were killed by your explosion. I got three myself."
"There were nine that I saw, so that makes twenty." He sighed and stood up. "All clear. Let's go inside and put our daughter back to bed."
Sydney stood up. "I should probably be appalled that we're so calm about this situation."
"We've discussed this before, love. We're not normal people."
She laughed at him and held the door open. "No, we're not. One more attack like this and we'll probably have to relocate."
"That's okay. There's plenty of safehouses all across the country with our names on it." He locked the door behind her the second she stepped inside.
"Something tells me that we're not going to perform our usual jobs at our respected agencies for quite a while."
"That's an understatement."
Sydney disengaged the locks on the basement door. "You can bring the children up whenever you want. It's all clear." Smiling she turned to her husband. "Would you go outside and do something about the bodies for now? I'll send Michael out to help you as soon as we can afford to. Then I'll call my father. He'll figure out what to do with the bodies after you've hidden them."
"You've become cold, my darling."
"I guess you're wearing off on me."
He grabbed her and pushed her up against the wall. "Don't ever talk like that. And don't lie to me. I can see your every thought in your eyes. You don't have to hide the fact that you're appalled at what you've become. But remember, Sydney. You did what was necessary to keep your child safe. Every person has a right to fight for the ones they love."
She nodded and wiped the tears that had begun to fall off of her cheek. "I love you."
"And I love you. Now go get our child from Lauren, and make sure she's okay." She started to walk away. "Sydney?" He saw her pause slightly before turning back to him. "It's okay to cry."
She smiled at him and nodded. "Thanks."
She descended the stairs into the basement with a heavy mind. For the first time in a long while, she felt dread when thinking about her future. This situation was going to be long and hard, emotionally, mentally, and physically. She knew that by the time it was over nothing and no one would be the same.