She had awakened sitting up against a stone cold wall. The door had abruptly opened and two men with guns had entered only just past the doorway. They took aim and she'd futilely curled up, shielding her face. They fired. She'd been left lying on the floor, motionless, aching. They'd been laughing.
Her body reeled from the bruises and welts forming from rubber bullets.
But she could have been dead. Perhaps she should have been. The bullets at the bank had been real. She had no doubts about that. Thirteen people. That young couple. That old man. That little boy with such dark hair and such big eyes.
It was hazy after that. She knew she was dragged from the room several times. Drugged. Interrogated. Sometimes about the chip. And sometimes just about her mother's compounds, organizations, movements, location. She didn't even vaguely consider answering their questions. She winced at the sound of her own bones crunching more than the pain of it. Acid burned her leg. She struggled; she screamed; she blacked out.
But it was awakening strapped to a table that brought her back to reality. A nearly blinding light in her eyes. And Sloane standing over her, stroking her hair. Her skin crawled. But she'd felt drugs forcing her unconscious again before she could do anything but glare at him.
The next time she awoke, she was back in the cell. She launched herself at the door the next time it opened. She buried her fists in noses and eyes. And directed kicks at heads and chests. She took the guard's keys, gun and a cellphone. She took aim at anything that moved and made it to a truck outside. She'd wanted to search the compound for Sloane but she was forced to just make her escape. She lost her pursuers and made a call for an extraction. She was on alert waiting.
When she finally saw Sergei get out of van and come towards her, she finally felt relieved. She felt her adrenaline rush die. And then her legs gave out beneath her.
Her eyes opened slowly, taking in her familiar bedroom. She assessed herself slowly, one of her hands was bandaged, her broken fingers immobilized. An IV was in her other arm hydrating her. It ached to move, but she turned her head slowly to scan the room.
"Hello, Sydney."
Sydney looked to see Dr. Andreas coming in the door. She started to sit up slowly, but instantly felt dizzy and was forced to lie back down.
"You've been here two days. The drugs are out of your system, but you have a concussion. Your mother will be pleased you're finally awake." The doctor looked at her eyes. "You're probably aching. You have quite a few bruises. Is there any other pain or discomfort I should know about?"
Sydney hadn't answered her. The doctor had left and her mother had come in a few minutes later.
"How are you feeling, Sydney?"
It had felt so surreal to be lying in her bed with her mother by her side after the craziness of the past few days.
Sydney stared at the ceiling. "Did you get the chip?"
"The team retrieved it from the bank less than an hour after you disappeared."
"Did you find where I was being held?"
"I sent a team. The location was clean."
She tried to think, to remember, but everything jumbled together in her head. "How long was it? How long did they have me?"
"Three days."
Sydney swallowed and turned her head to look at her mother. "The people, at the bank...were any of them left…alive?"
Irina sighed and shook her head. "Sydney--"
But Sydney's mind skipped to another thought and she cut her mother off. "I saw Sloane. The last day they had me. He was there."
Irina's face was expressionless. "Did he say anything to you?"
Sydney returned to staring at the ceiling. "No." But she shivered at the thought of the way he'd looked at her.
Her mother studied her intensely, obviously hoping she'd say more. But Irina finally left her saying she'd send her up some lunch.
Eating had been the last thing on Sydney's mind. She'd closed her eyes and feigned sleep when a maid had come in with the tray. She didn't want to be fussed over. She didn't want the reminder. She had enough reminders.
"How are you feeling?"
She wasn't facing him, but if she had been she knew his eyes were focused on the unsightly welts on her back. "Next question," she responded.
"You can talk about it."
She rolled over carefully and looked at him. "Well, as long as I have your permission," she responded dryly.
He stared at her without saying a word.
She sighed. "I know I can talk about it. I just, I really don't need to. I've been tortured before."
"Not recently."
It was true. It had been five years. But she didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to think about it. She barely looked at her own scars and bruises. Her mind was otherwise preoccupied. She hadn't had an appetite for days. As soon as she could get out of bed without being dizzy, she was down in her office combing through the police reports from the bank.
She hadn't even looked at the reports, but gone straight to the large stack of photos at the end. It was one grim picture after another. Bloodied bodies. Paled faces. Some with eyes wide open. Dead eyes. She braced herself for the picture she knew had to be coming.
The boy.
She'd stopped when she reached the picture. She hadn't wanted to stop on that photograph but she couldn't take her eyes off of it. She'd blocked out everything else in the room as tears had slowly filled her eyes.
"Sydney?"
She stood up so quickly she overturned her chair.
It truly shouldn't have been that shocking that her mother had stepped into her office. As she'd sighed and picked it back up, her mother approached the desk. She could have tried to close the folder and come up with some distraction or excuse. But she didn't move.
Her mother's eyes scanned the photographs on the desk and looked at her with questioning eyes.
Sydney took a deep breath. "It's not right." She shook her head, tears coming to her eyes. "The people, in that bank. They killed them. All of them. And they spared me." She looked away from her mother. "Just because they thought they could get some information out of me. And I can't help but think, of all the people in that bank, I probably deserved to die more than anyone."
Irina was silent and Sydney slowly raised her eyes to meet her mother's. Irina's expression was almost cold. "You can grieve the loss of life, Sydney, but don't make it about you."
Sydney lowered her eyes again, without responding.
Irina sighed and closed the folder. "What happened in that bank wasn't about justice, Sydney. And if it were, what justice would there have been in letting the one person in that bank who is out to stop people, like the men who ordered that massacre, die?"
She knew her mother was right. And if guilt for innocent victims had been the only thing on her mind perhaps it would have been easier to try and move past. But when her mother left the office, she dug through the victim's profiles until she found the profile of the boy. She glanced at his profile long enough to see that his name was Fredrick, but she focused on the photograph of him. He was grinning, widely. His brown eyes were smiling. His dark hair well combed for the professional posed photo. He looked like such a sweet, happy child. And when she looked at him, looked at his dark hair, deep inside she ached.
She hadn't slept peacefully for several nights. Once, she'd awakened hyperventilating, her skin crawling, seeing red dripping from before her eyes before she blinked it away. She recoiled when Sark tried to embrace her. He watched her carefully.
"Talk to me, Sydney."
It had taken her awhile to even be able to catch her breath long enough to answer him.
"I'm okay."
She told him. She told herself.
He shot her an icy look. "No, you're not."
"Just, go back to sleep."
She'd climbed out of bed and headed downstairs. It was nearing 4am and she went for a run. Her run had ended abruptly as she'd come upon a familiar tree.
She inhaled sharply, almost unable to get a breath back out. She started slowing to a jog. She needed to walk and, cool down. But she leaned against a tree, almost unable to breathe. She gasped as a pain attacked her abdomen. She sank to the ground, her hands holding her side.
Sydney had walked over to the tree and placed a hand on it. The sky opened and she was pelted with rain.
The pains were too sharp for her to stand up. She closed her eyes, trying to get the energy to shout for help. But she was still out of breath from her run. She sat there, just trying to get her breathing under control.
What had she been thinking?
She had taken a seat at the damp base of the tree. She blinked hard.
For so much of her pregnancy she really hadn't been thinking. Not about herself. And certainly not about the baby. She grimly wondered if that had been true just after the delivery. When she'd refused to look at the baby. To hold it. To name it.
She went back into the house and slipped into her mother's study. She pulled open the bottom drawer and froze. She flipped through the papers in case it had slipped beneath them. She opened another drawer wondering if she'd somehow chosen the wrong one. If she'd forgotten. If she was remembering wrong. But a search of all the desk drawers resulted in nothing.
The picture was gone.
She'd numbly arranged her mother's desk back to order and exited the study. Her clothes were still soggy from the rain. She hadn't bothered to grab a jacket as she'd headed across the grounds and entered the gym. Her long, wet hair slapped her face with every kick she directed at the punching bag. Her cheeks were irritated and red when she finally wandered back outside into the rain, breathing heavily. Even when her breathing calmed, she was shivering badly from the cold. But she didn't go back inside.
Nothing she wanted was inside.
Maybe she cried. She still didn't know if her vision was obscured by rain or tears.
Guards found her when it got dark. She was set in front of the lit fireplace in the library. Maids rung the rain water out her hair and gave her blanket. She stared at her hands, her pruned fingers. She heard her teeth rattling. Her lips were numb.
She blankly recalled voices speaking over her, about her. Her mother. Sark. She'd laid down on the couch and closed her eyes. She hadn't slept.
Sleep came in vague snatches for the next few days. Never more than a couple hours a night. She was fatigued and listless during the day. Reports came to her about Sloane's movements, but they couldn't grab her interest. She couldn't eat. Her stomach ached, constantly.
Three weeks passed her in a fog. Sometimes she spent the entire day in bed. The guards, her mother, Sark all looked at her with constantly worried faces. She knew what they were thinking. She could almost hear them thinking it.
It's happening again.
Even she couldn't reassure them that it wasn't. She felt herself sinking, but she also felt powerless to stop it.
She went into her bedroom one night and Sark was waiting for her. He held out a photo packet to her. She took it silently, sat down on the bed beside him and opened it.
A lump had risen in her throat.
Taryn.
She flipped through the pictures, with an almost frantic speed, not registering anything in them except the faces. But as she was halfway through a second look at each she accepted that it was all Taryn.
Only Taryn.
She turned to Sark. The expression on his face was perplexed. She stuffed the pictures back in the packet and placed them back in his lap. She stood up.
"Sydney?"
She had stopped and turned to look at him. But she couldn't say anything before the tears filled up her eyes. Did he think Taryn was the only one she ever wondered about? Worried about the safety of? She glared at him. It had been completely illogical to be angry. He didn't know. She hadn't explained.
She blinked back tears.
He moved towards her, but he knew better than to try to embrace her. His eyes were full of questions.
She just shook her head. "It's not always about what I left behind there." She sniffled. She gestured to the photo packet. "It's not always about her." The sobs came freely after that and she couldn't explain.
She was falling apart.
Again.
She knew the lack of sleep wasn't helping. She'd left the compound for the day, for a short trip to a branch. She'd met with a contact on the way back.
"These should help you sleep."
A bottle of pills had been in her bag when she got back to the compound. She didn't want to worry anyone by letting them know she had them. She took them discreetly before bed. She hoped they'd see her sleeping as an improvement. And if they didn't, at least, with sleep, she could gather her thoughts.
She approached her mother in the sitting room one evening, finally ready to voice one of her questions.
"When I was pregnant, you told me, you said that the baby was welcome here for as long as I needed. Did you mean it?"
Irina looked at her seriously. "Yes. Of course."
There'd been hope in her mother's eyes. Hope that Sydney would finally stop shutting her out.
Sydney stared. "What about now? Would it be welcome now?"
"Yes, Sydney." Irina raised an eyebrow, questioningly
Sydney swallowed. "I just…I needed to know."
Her mother had nodded and she'd left the room.
She'd had vodka instead of wine with her bath that night. She hadn't realized how long she'd been soaking in the tub until Sark peeked in on her.
She climbed out of the tub and smiled at him, trying to remember the last time he had looked back at her without looking concerned.
He handed her a towel. "We need to talk."
"I'm not in the mood to talk, " she responded, dropping the towel and kissing him.
She grinned when she pulled away for the first time.
He definitely had ceased looking concerned.
"As enjoyable as that was, we still need to talk."
She rolled over and grinned at him. "Oh, really?" She leaned towards him and he moved before she could kiss him. She pouted momentarily.
"Okay, whatever this is must be very important." She propped her head on her elbow, giving him her complete attention.
His eyes fixed on her face. "Sydney, are you pregnant?"
Confusion crossed her face. "What?" She sat up. "As careful as we've been, why would you ask that?"
He sat up as well. "Something has been on your mind constantly. And I overheard you talking to your mother about whether a baby would still be welcome here."
"I was being hypothetical."
"Were you?"
She hesitated, because even she wasn't sure.
He watched her carefully. "Sydney, if you are…it's okay."
She stared at him incredulously. "What part of it would be okay?" She shook her head and started getting dressed for bed. "I'm not pregnant, Sark." She lay back down, still reeling at the thought.
It was silent a minute before she turned to look at him again.
"You sounded almost…hopeful." She sighed. "Do you want kids?"
He started to get dressed. "I wasn't opposed to the idea."
"I'm sorry." She stared at the ceiling. "We haven't talked about it and it just never occurred to me that it could be something you might want." She looked him in the eye. "But you…you need to know, I don't want any more children. And it's something I know I'm not going to change my mind about."
"Sydney, I was all right with it either way. I'm just concerned for you. I feel you tossing and turning every time you have a nightmare. I hear you, crying in your sleep. And I know you've been using the missions, Sloane, even me, to distract yourself rather than talking about it. Whatever it is, Sydney, you need to deal with it."
She had stared at him in silence and he'd finally just left the room.
Even a pill couldn't make her sleep that night.
She was hardly in any shape to be off on an assignment to Monte Carlo tracking Bertrand the next day but she felt like she would go insane sitting at home. She followed him to an unfinished building, but he disappeared from view after making his way up to the third floor. She made her way around plastic covered wood frames, weapon drawn.
Bertrand came tearing through the thick plastic around a frame and charged her. She felt flat on her back on the floor, wind knocked out of her and her gun skidded across the floor several feet away.
She started to sit up and but he held her down, holding a knife to her throat. He grinned, obviously recognizing her. "Sloane will be glad we ran into each other. He misses you."
Sydney frowned, but was silent catching her breath.
He stared at her. "You're all he talks about. I don't know what his fascination with you is, but he definitely likes to keep track of what you've been up to."
She forced a smile, threw a knee into his groin. He lost his grip on her. She twisted the knife from his grasp and flipped it back towards him and embedded it in his ribcage. He fell back, eyes wide.
Sydney stood over him. "Where's Schrader?"
He looked confused.
"You ordered the deaths of thirteen innocent people in that bank. Now, where's Schrader?"
Bertrand started to smile. "Sloane…he wants you." His eyes rolled back.
She sighed, retrieved her gun and left the building.
It was late when she got back to the compound and she went straight to her room and climbed into bed as quietly as possible so as not to disturb Sark. She sighed as the hours ticked by and sleep didn't come. She got out of bed and went down to her office.
She pulled out her bottle of sleeping pills. She took one with a glass of water. She took the picture of Frederick from her desk and stared at it a minute. She blinked hard and poured a handful of sleeping pills into her hand and shoved them into her mouth. She spit them back out into her hand immediately, trembling at what she'd almost done. She wandered the room with the handful of pills, debating.
The door to the office opened and Sark stood in the doorway. He gave her a hard look, before crossing the room and grabbing her hand. She opened it, guiltily. He turned her hand over letting the pills drop into the trash can beside her desk. He surveyed the items on the desk, looking at the picture of the boy.
"Is he what this is about? Are you still torturing yourself about what happened in that bank?" He tried to catch her eyes. "Are you!"
Sydney looked away, focusing on the picture. She closed her eyes a minute and swallowed. "He could have been mine," she whispered. She looked up at him. "He could have been mine," she said louder.
Sark let go of her hand. "What are you talking about?"
"He was almost two-years old. He has the same dark hair," she whimpered. "Just like the baby I never held, never named. Never did anything to protect."
Sark's expression softened. "Sydney, this boy wasn't yours."
"I know that! But I don't know where it is. It'll be two next month, and I don't even know what it looks like. Fredrick could have been my child and I would have never known." She picked up the picture and sat down in her chair at her desk. "I have a picture of a dead boy I didn't even know, but I don't have any pictures my baby. I thought giving it up, it would be safe...but I don't know if it's safe. I don't know if it's alive or happy or healthy. I just...I don't know."
He looked at her. "You can talk to your mother. You can ask her your questions."
She shook her head, putting the picture of the boy aside. "What right do I have to know anything about it?"
"What right? Sydney, you gave birth to this child."
"I didn't even hold it. I didn't even look at it." Her eyes fixed on the pill bottle on her desk.
"You've only been torturing yourself by not getting the answers to your questions." He took the bottle of pills from in front of her.
She was silent.
His expression darkened with a realization. "Sydney..."
"I gave it away to protect it," she answered.
He moved to face her, but she didn't look at him. "But what do you want now? Do you want to see it?"
"I don't want to disrupt its life."
"You don't know that you would."
She raised her eyes towards him. "Sark, do you know where it is?"
He straightened. "Just talk to your mother, Sydney. Stop trying to punish yourself and ask your questions."
He left her in the office. She swallowed and stepped out. The door to her mother's study was closed, but the light was on.
Sydney closed the photo album as there was a knock on her door. "Come in."
Nina poked her head in the door. "The girl is settled in her room. She's refused dinner. She apparently wants to just get some sleep. She's asking about you." Nina smiled and left the room.
Sydney got up from beside her bed and walked down the hallway to the guest room. She stopped in the doorway. Taryn was sitting hunched in the bed, hugging the covers around her. She looked younger and smaller, alone in the large bed.
"Hey," Sydney greeted, softly.
The girl looked up at her, but didn't say anything. Sydney was getting used to that. Taryn hadn't really had anything to say since she'd awakened on the plane.
Sydney came forward. "Comfy?"
Taryn shrugged, looking down at the bed again.
Sydney debated. "Are you sure you don't want to try and eat something?"
"I'm sure," the girl answered, coldly. Obviously annoyed that Sydney had even asked.
Sydney sat down in the chair beside the bed. "Taryn, I owe you an apology. You should feel free to talk about whatever you need to. What happened on the plane, I shouldn't have walked away."
The girl gave her an uncertain frown. "I thought…I thought you were mad at me."
Sydney blinked. "No," she said firmly. "I was upset, but not at you. You shouldn't have had to go through any of the things you've gone through. And I know it's important to hear someone tell you that you're not to blame."
Taryn pulled at her fingers uselessly.
Sydney looked her in the eye. "It's not your fault, Taryn. Even though you feel like it is, it's not."
Taryn let her fingers drop back into her lap. She nodded, still silent.
Sydney sighed. "I'll be leaving in the morning."
"To go get my Dad?"
Sydney nodded. "Yeah."
"How long have you known him anyway?"
"A long time," Sydney answered, vaguely.
"How long?" Taryn pressed.
Sydney looked at the girl in front of her and responded, thoughtfully, "More than ten years."
"So you're really good friends?" Taryn paused only a moment. "He's never mentioned you."
Sydney stared at the wall. "We…lost touch over the years."
The child gave her a thinking frown, trying to make sense of it. "But he asked you to help him find me?"
"I wanted to help," Sydney said shortly.
She needed to help.
The girl studied her then seemed to let it go. "I miss him."
"I know he misses you too."
Taryn hugged herself. "Do you think he's okay?"
It was a question Sydney knew she couldn't hesitate to answer. "He's okay," she told Taryn, willing it to be true.
Taryn pulled at the bedspread. "What if he's not? What if something's happened to him?" There was a fearful look in her eyes as she continued. "What if you can't find him and he never comes back?"
"That's not going to happen," Sydney responded.
"Then, where is he? What happened to him?" Taryn stared at her. "I know it must be something bad or you'd tell me."
Sydney hesitated, unsure how much she could really explain without scaring the girl.
Taryn glared at her. "I'm not a baby! I want to know what happened to my dad!"
Sydney almost flinched. "No, you're not a baby. The same people that went after you, went after your father as well. But I told you the truth. I'm going to go find him and bring him here, just like I did for you."
The child nodded slowly, her face creased with frustration. "Would it help if I told you more about the people that were after me?" She brushed a strand of hair back from her face and secured it behind her ear.
Sydney watched her. "What do you mean?"
The girl started to shake her head then sighed. "The men at the safe house...just before they put that bag over my head, they told me I was...an anomaly. I don't know what they meant."
Sydney frowned. "Don't worry about it, Taryn. You should get some rest now. Is there anything else you need?"
The child shook her head and lay down in the bed.
Sydney reached over and turned out the light beside her bed.
The girl sat up again and grabbed her arm. "Sydney?"
"What? Should I leave the light on?"
"No, just..." Taryn frowned at herself and released Sydney's arm. She looked down. "I don't want to be alone."
Sydney sat down on the edge of the bed and embraced her daughter. "You aren't alone, Taryn," she whispered in her ear. "I'm right here."
Taryn hugged her back tightly.
When she let go, Sydney smiled at her. "I can stay until you go to sleep, okay?"
Taryn nodded. She lay back down in the bed and curled onto her side. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Sydney looked down at the little girl. Her little girl. It was long after Taryn's breathing was slow that. Sydney reluctantly got up and left the room, closing the door behind her. She headed back down the stairs and paused at her mother's study. She could see the light was on under the door.
She hesitantly approached the door, knocked lightly and pushed it open.
Irina glanced up from her computer. She saw the tears in her daughter's eyes. "Sydney, what's the matter?" She beckoned her inside.
Sydney swallowed and sat down across from her mother. There wasn't any way to say it except to just say it. "Mom, I want to know about my baby."
Irina hadn't even looked surprised.
"What would you like to know?"
Sydney hesitated, taking in a shuddering deep breath. She couldn't even look her mother in the eye. "It's…it's okay, right?"
Irina smiled. "She's fine."
"She?" Sydney whispered.
Irina nodded. "You had another girl."
Sydney smiled slightly. "What's...what's her name?"
"Analise Jacqueline Bristow."
"Bristow? You named her," Sydney realized.
"Yes."
Sydney took a shaky, deep breath. "You kept her, didn't you?"
Irina blinked once, slowly. "Yes. I did."
Sydney stood up, but kept her hands on the chair, almost needing the support as she took it all in. "Her hair…is it…still dark?"
"Nearly raven black," Irina confirmed.
Sydney swallowed, tears filling her eyes but a small smile starting to form on her face. "Can I…can I see her?"
Irina's eyes glistened and she blinked once before responding, "I've been waiting for you to ask."