"Syd!"

His voice reached her over the rumble of suitcase wheels, the click-clack of a business woman's heels and the floor polisher at LAX.

She rushed forward and melted into his arms. He smelled a little like gasoline and grass; had he been mowing?

She quickly slipped her left hand behind his back as they walked out into the dusty darkness of the short-term garage.

"Well?" he asked politely, "How'd things go?"

She shrugged, "Alright, I guess."

He looked at her hard, the corner of his mouth turning down slightly. "Alright? Did you get any intel?"

They climbed into the car, and she took care to cover her hands with her sleeves of the sweatshirt, like she was cold. It must've been 85.

"Just pictures." She forced herself to look at him. "Surveillance only, remember? No crazy stunts or cool Marshall gadgets."

"Yeah," he said like he didn't care, as he leaned forward and kissed her, but not without letting his lower teeth press hard against her bottom lip.

Mmm, that was kind of nice.

"Hi." She could feel herself melting, melting, melting like the Wicked Witch. He had missed her.

"Hi."

They drove home in the crawling Thursday afternoon traffic; had it really only been 5 days she'd been away? It seemed like forever. LA seemed like a different planet than the one she'd come from, so orange, dry, plastic. She dozed lightly in the passenger seat and woke when she felt him move his hand to her thigh, just under the edge of her skirt where it ended midway between her hip and knee.

"Hello there," she said without opening her eyes. "I think other people can see into our car."

"Yeah?" she could hear his smile. "Let 'em."

He kept his hand there the whole rest of the way home. As they'd turned onto their street, it was just dusk; she'd opened her eyes and found herself thick-lidded with desire for him to take her to their bed and fuck her slowly into oblivion. Weird, she didn't even feel like hitting him.

She lay still with her left elbow under her head, so still under him that if she hadn't periodically moved her hand where it rested on the small of his back, her fingers in the groove of his spine, he might've thought she'd gone to sleep.

For once, his tenderness didn't bother her.

She didn't really come, but she didn't feel cheated, either. By the time he'd finished, she was actually deep in thought about how to explain her missing rings, if it came to that. He hadn't noticed the purpling bruise on her chest.

They'd left the stereo on in the living room before they'd stumbled into bed, and through the haze of early sleep she thought she heard Bono singing,

You bury your treasure

Where it can't be found

But your love is like a secret

That's been passed around

There is a silence that comes to a house

When no one can sleep

I guess it's the price of love

I know it's not cheap

Oh c'mon

Baby, baby baby, light my way1

"Julian Sark," her voice bounced off the walls of the conference room, "was tracked to this house on the outskirts of Cheltenham, in the region of western England commonly known as the Cotswolds. Our contact there provided us with initial intel on the house."

The pictures Nigel had given her spooled onto the monitors on a timed delay. Marshall always did something cool with the presentations.

"According to local sources, the deed to the house is papered to a Ms. Natashya Lorien. But… she doesn't live there. No one in the area knows how long the house has been empty, or been owned by Ms. Lorien."

A faint grimace crossed her father's face, but it was gone before she could look back.

"Moving on," she clicked the pointer with her fingertips, "It appears that Mr. Sark is there, but… we still don't know why."

Photos of Sark's afternoon ride spooled by without comment until one of the newbies said, "Is that horse drooling?"

"It's a chemical reaction," she explained tersely. "The metal of the mouthpiece on the bridle usually has some kind of copper in it, which causes salivation. It's considered a sign of acceptance by the horse of its rider's commands."

They all stared at her, and she could feel a blush rising in her cheeks. Damnit, why did she always have to be such a geek? Actually, she'd asked Sark because she had had the same question.

"Anyway, "she covered, "Aside from these few photos of him, I didn't get anything."

They all kept staring at her.

"He didn't leave the house once," she could feel the heat rising up again, "I laid out in the weeds for two days."

"Thank you, Sydney," Jack finally rose to her feet. "This is a good start. I think we should further explore the owner of the house- perhaps we can uncover a connection to Sark and the reason for his sudden reappearance."

"So, Sark is holed up in a house in England after being in hiding for three years, and he turns up to go riding?" Vaughn was at her side as they walked back to their desks. "You don't think that's a little strange?"

"Well, sure," she agreed, "But like I said, we have a lead to work on. I'm sure it's all part of some grander scheme—we just need to figure out what."

He nodded and ducked his head for a quick peck on her lips. "You're feeling OK, then?" Concern forced his forehead into several prominent wrinkles.

"Yeah." She looked at him and tried to look for all the world like she was really, truly fine. Not a sickly thing that had to be taken care of.

He blinked, and she blinked back, before they parted and sat at their desks.

Ten minutes later, her phone rang.

"Sydney," her father's voice was low and impenetrable. "Can you… meet me in my office?"

"Sure, Dad," she hung up the phone without a sound.

She sank into the leather chair in front of him, crossed her legs, and looked expectantly at him. He was still handsome in his dark wool suit, even after all these years. She wished, for the briefest instant, that maybe her parents hadn't been spies, that they had stayed together, Jack and Laura. Maybe they'd be retired by now, live in Arizona. Someplace close, but far enough that she and Vaughn could go visit them. But then, she wouldn't have met Vaughn, if her dad hadn't been her Spy Daddy, and her mom hadn't killed his Spy Daddy, and—

"Sydney," his voice cut into her daydream.

"You expect me to believe that you spent four days tracking Sark and the best you could turn up was some pictures of his vacation home?" Jack's steely glare made her feel like she was 10 again.

She shrugged, nonchalant. "Like I said, he didn't do anything. He went out to ride, and that was it. I didn't want to risk getting closer to the house without backup, in case I got captured."

"Then why didn't you call for backup? We could've had Dixon, or Vaughn, or whoever you wanted there within 8 hours."

She shrugged again and looked at her hands. Had he seen that she didn't have her rings on? She slipped her left hand under her thigh like she was cold.

Jack sighed and leaned back in his desk chair. "Sydney," his voice softened a little, like it always did when they reached an impasse like this. "I appreciate that the last few weeks have been… difficult. You may not be feeling 100, that's fine, and…" he hesitated, "It's none of my business, what you and Vaughn have planned for your lives."

"The name on the deed," he continued. "When Irina was still Laura, when you were a little girl, she would correspond with old friends. Friends from her youth, she told me."

Sydney's stomach always started to churn a little when he mentioned her mother's name.

"She periodically updated me on what this friend or that one was up to, like any wife would," he stared at some fixed point above Sydney's head. "She had a friend, someone she told me was married to a worker at State who'd been sent abroad, stationed at an embassy in Bucharest. That friend, a woman named Nicole, had a daughter while they were 'abroad.'"

She looked at him, and at the same time, they said, "Natashya."

He nodded. "Which brings me to my question—what if Ms. Lorien is really Irina's friend's daughter?"

She nodded like she was just beginning to thread the connection together herself. She wasn't terribly adept at fooling her dad, about anything.

"And if so," she played, "What is her connection to Sark?"

"Exactly," her father's precise consonants caused the hair on her neck under her collar to rise. "I have trouble believing that an op as competent as Nigel wouldn't be capable of putting her name together with Sark in some plausible fashion."

She couldn't meet his gaze. "He let us find him, Dad."

"Yes, I think we already knew that," Jack sounded slightly exasperated. "Sydney, is there more you're choosing not to share?"

"Dad," her voice trembled a little, "She's Sark's half-sister."

Songs:

1 "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)." Achtung, Baby, U2.