They sat in silence for an eternity. It was so quiet that Sydney could count the seconds marked off by the cheap government-issue wall clock hanging behind her father's desk.
"So…" his voice trailed off. "You spoke to him, then."
Her silence condemned her completely.
"And?"
And. And. A-N-D. Three little letters that can mean so much or so little, depending on how you say them.
"I agreed to help him get some intel," she thought her voice might give out. "He's looking for someone he thinks murdered his mother."
"Sydney!" Jack's voice was sharp, "Why would you agree to do something like that? The plot to deliver Sloane to Sark didn't teach you enough what happens when you conspire with someone like that?"
She could feel his rage get going. He always hit his stride when he found a chance to harp on her mother, no matter how many times Irina had helped them in the last few years.
"Sark was an operative of your mother's, you know that as well as I—" Jack fumed now, "—which means he knows how to be loyal only to himself, and cooperates only when it suits him."
"I certainly hope you're not planning on indulging your pact with Mr. Sark," Jack reined in his anger then. "He doesn't have anything over you, you can walk away."
"Maybe having him in our debt wouldn't be so useless," she offered, knowing how Jack kept a tight leash on his contacts and called in his ruthless favors when it suited him best.
"Sydney," his voice tipped dangerously towards anger again, "Why would you want that?"
"He has my wedding rings," she whispered, and despite her efforts, she felt the hot, scratchy tears that were teetering on the edge of her eyelids begin to stream out onto her cheekbones. "He's going to send them to Vaughn if I don't help him."
Jack glowered and understood the line of logic perfectly. Hell, it sounded like something he might do, someday. If there were need...
"Do you really think that would work? Vaughn knows you better than that."
"No, I know," she hiccupped a little, "But, Dad, we…" Her throat caught in a sob so that she couldn't pronounce the words without being interrupted by her own sob. No way could she tell him the worst- that she'd been willingly unfaithful with Sark. She forced herself to sigh, to draw a breath all the way in, past the stinging lump. "Everything's been so messed up since Chechnya," she wouldn't even refer to it as "the miscarriage", "He… I—"
"Sydney," he said calmly, and handed her a tissue. "Take a deep breath."
"Dad, I knew," she couldn't look at him, "And I didn't tell him. Because… because I wasn't sure I wanted to have it."
Jack sighed heavily, and she wasn't sure if he was disgusted or not.
The ticking of the wall clock sounded like gunshots, they were so quiet.
"I must admit," he finally said, "I was somewhat surprised to learn you were trying to start a family now, like this, what with you both being agents."
She nodded quickly and snuffled, "I know."
"Are you… still?" They were so awkward with these kinds of subjects. Their relationship, even now, was still mostly work-related. Their family was so fucked up it was more adept at discussing weapons-grade anthrax and terrorist plots to take over the world with a device invented by a 16th century freak philosopher than a subject like potential grandchildren.
"Kind of?" she said, embarrassed. "Well… he is—I mean, we are? But I really don't think it's… the time."
Spy Daddy was clearly as embarrassed as she was. Ever since that mission to Ibiza two years earlier, when they'd forgotten their comms were on and he'd heard them discussing how she was rough with him, on ops and at home, he'd tried to make it his business to stay out of their business. But it confirmed what Simon Walker had told him about Syd-as-Julia-Thorne in her missing years with the Covenant. That little indiscretion had earned Mr. Walker a bullet to the forehead. It also indirectly confirmed that the tape from the bug in the VCR wasn't an isolated incident in his daughter's life. Which caused him to wonder idly if this was somehow evidence of a defect in his parenting.
"Alright," he shook off the thoughts of his daughter with Vaughn, "I think we need to proceed- carefully. We need to look into Sark and Natashya Lorien's past. You said Lorien is his half-sister?"
She nodded, stabbing at her eyes with the now-soggy Kleenex lump. "He told me she was Lazarey's daughter with his wife. Sark's mother was Lazarey's mistress."
"Well," Jack said thoughtfully, "If we can believe that, we need to find out more about who his mother was. Because he's looking for someone who murdered his mother?"
"Supposedly, someone named Daniel Wells," she was starting to refocus, "Someone he was in school with in England, and someone who was also subjected to childhood operative training."
They locked eyes over her last statement.
"So we were right all along," she continued, "He was subjected to Project Christmas-type conditioning as well."
"Interesting," Jack said sardonically. If he'd had any idea his work from the 1970's would've come to this…
"So," he summed up, "Irina knew Lazarey's wife. And subsequently, her daughter. Did she also know Sark's mother?"
"It kills me that we didn't already know this, Dad," she shook her head. "How little the CIA knows."
"Sydney," he began, "We've been through this—going above board is infinitely harder that using blackmail and threats to get achieve the goal in mind."
"Yeah," she muttered, "But sometimes it's tempting."
"In the meantime," he glossed over her disgust at the CIA's ineptitude, "We need to keep this quiet until we can figure out his endgame."
She rose to leave, to go back to her desk and put on the face of someone who hadn't just been crying in her Spy Daddy's office.
"Sydney," his voice stopped her just as she was turning the knob, "You might consider making sure you don't get pregnant again."
"Dad," her cheeks reddened, "It's taken care of."
He nodded. Of course she'd have thought of that. She was his.
That evening, she and Vaughn sat on the couch, watching the Raiders get pounded by the Cowboys.
"Oh," Vaughn said offhandedly, "There was a letter for you in the mail."
"A letter?" she said. Who had time to write her letters? Most of her friends were dead or in WPP. Will and Nadia weren't allowed to contact her anymore.
"It's on the counter," he said, "By the fruit bowl."
She eased off the couch and padded softly into the kitchen. The envelope was postmarked LA.
What kind of joke is this, she wondered
She slid the sandalwood letter opener they'd received as wedding gift from Shankar, one of the analysts, under the flap and slip the paper across the top fold.
She pulled out a note written on hotel stationary, from the Hotel Las Palmas. That was a pretty swanky place downtown.
You're not the only one who spies on old friends, it read. The script was small, precise, and the lettering somehow not American.
Sark. Here in LA? Why?
"Who's it from?" Vaughn's voice from the other room made her jump.
"Oh, it's just a note from someone I knew in grad school," she lied, "We used to study together."
"Huh," Vaughn had already moved on. "Do you want to watch the rest of the game? There's hockey on, too."
"Hockey's fine," she said. She placed the note in the sink and ran water over it. When the paper was sopping wet, she pushed it into the drain and turned on the garbage disposal.
Later, in the middle of the night, she lay awake turning over the note in her mind. So he'd followed her back to LA? She supposed it made sense; they could've easily sent someone to the house to assassinate him, now that they knew he was there.
He wasn't dumb, that much was certain.
She threw off the covers and went to the phone.
"Information," a woman's voice said, bored.
"Yes," she said quietly, "Can you give me the number for the Hotel Las Palmas in Los Angeles."
The automaton's voice said, "The number you have requested is 310-233-9975."
She scribbled the number on a pad of paper they kept near the phone and dialed it with her thumb.
"Hotel Las Palmas," the clerk yawned. She could hear a trace of Mexico in his speech.
"Hi," she began, and realized she didn't know what room he was in. Shit. "I'm… I'm trying to reach an old friend?"
"Oh, sure lady," he obviously knew what she meant. "Hold on while I connect you."
She held her breath as the line rang once… twice… three times… four times….
"Yes." Finally he picked up.
"Sark," she whispered furiously, "What are you doing?"
"Oh, Sydney, it's you," he yawned. "It's rather rude to phone someone after midnight- I thought you knew that."
Bastard.
"Why did you follow me here?"
"You know what they say—out of sight, out of mind," his voice was low, a little hoarse. "I wouldn't want you to forget about me."
"Like I could afford to do that," she spit. "Leave me alone."
"I don't know what you can or can't afford," he said, a trace of amusement coloring his voice, "But I was sleeping peacefully, so I'm going to let you go now."
Click.
He'd hung up on her? Fuck him.
Lying on his back in the dark, Sark chuckled. This was going to be fun.
She returned to bed, where Vaughn was still soundly sleeping.
"Sometimes, I wake up before you, and I watch you sleep," he'd told her when he proposed.
Stalker, she thought now as she tried to rest.