At breakfast, she felt nervous; she waited for him to come up behind her and hold a gun to her head, or to slip into the table next to them and sit there as though nothing was wrong with that. Every time she saw a blonde head emerge from the hallway, she sat up a little straighter, only to slump back again in her chair when she realized it wasn't him.

"Are you not hungry," Vaughn finally said, looking at the food still on her plate.

"What?" She started at the sound of his voice, then looked at the heap of fruit she'd taken from the buffet line. "Um, no, I just didn't sleep well… I guess I'm not hungry."

A shadow of concern crossed Vaughn's face, but then he smiled before saying, "Are you feeling OK? You're really jumpy, and you said you had a migraine yesterday."

"I'm fine," she smiled, shaking her head. "Just too much sun… I'm not used to being relaxed, you know? It's weird almost."

"Yeah," Vaughn agreed, and speared another piece of pineapple, "I'm not complaining. So, what do you want to do today? Anything?"

She stretched, her shirt pulling up to show her brown midsection a little, and said, "I don't have a problem with the program so far."

"Cool."


Her eyes were so relaxed she could see the veins and capillaries running on the inside of her eyelids, through a dim red and yellow haze she knew to be the blood moving inside her eyes. It was kind of hypnotic. The sun beat down on them, and she could feel the pleasant heat soaking into her body.

She tried not to think about Sark.

Vaughn lie reading next to her. The constant breeze off the ocean was the only thing that made the heat of the sand tolerable. She was relatively dark-skinned; she wondered at how Sark managed not to be completely fried, as pale as he was.

God, why did she have to keep thinking about him? It was like he was infecting her brain.

It had been over a year since he'd escaped from them, in Paris. After she'd bitten his lip around that lime. She'd had a lot of limes this week.

"You want a drink?" Vaughn turned his head to her.

"It's not even lunch time," she giggled, "Isn't it a little early?"

"It's noon somewhere," he shrugged, then rolled towards her. "Besides, we don't have to stay out here all day." His hand traced a lazy circle around her belly button where it was exposed, then down to the bottom of her bikini. "I'm sure we could find other ways to pass the time." She closed her eyes behind her sunglasses and smiled as he stroked the inside of her thigh. "So, do you want a drink, or what?"

"Ok," she smiled, and slapped his hand away.

He had barely been gone a minute when a young man hawking umbrellas came by. Sydney raised her hand to wave him away, saying "No, por favor," when he pressed a note into her hand and kept walking.

It was a slip of paper, folded in two. She sat up abruptly and saw that it was a piece of hotel stationary. Opening it, she read, "Lovely bikini. Look to your right."

Like her head was moved by an invisible hand, she looked over her right shoulder casually, scanning the beach. There were several canvas-covered cabanas down the sand a ways, not exactly far, but far enough that they couldn't see who was in them, or hear any conversation from them. A pair of male feet protruded from one, propped up on a small table meant for drinks. Sark. No wonder he wasn't burned. What was this? Was he spying on them? She had half a mind to march down there and shoot him with the gun she had in her beach bag.

"Here you go," Vaughn said behind her, and she turned to find him handing her a mojito. Complete with a wedge of lime. Perfect.

She lay back and tried not to wonder what Sark was up to.