A/N: Ok let me say a HUGE I'm sorry, because I haven't update in forever. Also this chapter is the Sark story, but the story will get Sarkney in following chapters!!!

The Birth of Sark

When the familiar guards opened the door to his cell, Sark sat upright and waited for them to manhandle him to the interview room, but they didn't step inside. Instead the burly and slightly overweight guard, whom he had named Bob, stepped aside and Sydney strolled into his small cell.

She caught his eye and held it for a moment as she waited for another guard to bring her a chair, "thought you might be more comfortable here…" then she settled down, in arms reach from him and waited.

"I didn't think you would be coming today," his voice was soft but the confined space magnified it in the silence.

"Why?"

Sark grinned and a little of his old smirk emerged on his face, "Agent Vaughn seemed to think that he could put a stop to our… conversations." He was mocking Vaughn and she knew it, but with the way Vaughn had been acting recently she couldn't call up any anger.

"He shouldn't have talked to you; it was a breach of protocol." She tried not to sound too disapproving, but Sark could hear it and it puzzled him to a certain point. If he wasn't mistaken there was trouble in paradise, the kind of trouble that was accompanied with jealously and unhappiness.

"Well in any case, I believe I left off as Irina and left for Alexandria." He sounded relaxed, nonchalant to a degree, but internally he was dreading bringing back those years that followed Ireland and the death of Sasha.

Eyes closed and hands clasped together Irina sat in a generously furnished library at the heart of Alexandria. Surrounded by books and solitude she could think about the unfortunate position that Sasha had put her in.

The life that she had so unwillingly given up for her country, the one with Jack and Sydney, were wounds that had only recently begun to heal, and now the presence of another child in her home brought back the pain. Slowly she rubbed her palms together and tried to think of a plan, a way to turn the presence of Julian into a positive aspect.

Considering her situation, she decided to grasp onto what she had told Julian in the stable, she was to be his teacher and nothing more. Of course she could mother him, in fact that was an instinct that she had fought all the way across the Mediterranean as he lay curled in a ball shaking with sobs. But mothering a young boy would not produce what she desperately needed, and that was a second in command.

Set in her resolve she breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the phone that lay on the table, dialing the appropriate numbers she contacted people that could find her reliable tutors, and a housekeeper to keep the house in order.

Glancing at the clock she saw that it was already past 3 in the morning, and as every night before she went to sleep she reached to her briefcase, and pulled out a folder marked with the date of the previous week. Inside were a group of ten photographs, all of the same two people.

Sydney had grown even taller and was entering the awkward pre-teen stage of adolescence; her hair was longer and pulled back into a braid as she danced at her ballet recital. Other pictures were similar and the ones of Jack featured a man that Laura Bristow had never known. He always looked grim and when she heard reports of his constant missions away from Sydney it hurt her on some level, the knowledge that her daughter was so alone and that it was largely her fault.

As she brushed her fingers over her daughters face, she noticed Julian standing at the door to the library. His face was puffy, she knew without any doubt that he had been crying and he looked entirely miserable in an oversized bathrobe.

"I'm afraid of the dark." It was barely a whisper from Julian's lips, but it penetrated every corner of the library.

Trying to convince herself that being firm would only benefit him in the future, Irina slid the photographs back into the envelope silently and then looked into his blue eyes coldly.

"That is an irrational fear that you will get over tonight… Julian, do you understand me?" Standing stiffly from her chair she walked over to him and crouched to be at his eye level.

"Your fears give our enemies tools to use; if you fear something, it can be exploited to kill you. Now, go to your room and go to sleep… without the light." His lip was quivering and every atom of his being hated Irina for her cold response.

"But, my mother…" that was all he got out, before her hand streaked across his face in a slap, reddening his cheek and causing tears to well up in his eyes again.

"Sasha is dead because she was stupid and afraid. Never talk back to me and never forget I am not your mother, and I will not coddle you." Rising and taking him by the arm she led him back to the bedroom she had allotted to him.

It was a large room that was decorated with an Italian flourish by a designer that had imagined the room for an older resident, not for a small seven year old boy. Furnished with a sitting area, fireplace, large wardrobe, small library, private bathroom and a queen bed; the room had a positively haunted feeling in the dark.

But, Irina set in her ways, walked through the room and removed every single light bulb and candle, leaving Julian sitting on the oversized bed in the dark, tears streaming down his face, as he prayed that his mother would come and hold him through the night.

Anna Lazeray, or rather Sasha Bashmakova, never came and Julian Lazeray began his long transformation into Mr. Sark.

This metamorphosis began with the arrival of Professor Grigoriy Yurivic, an aged man who had been the one to discover Irina Derevko in her youth and was now retired and bored. A combination that had led him to accept the job of teaching espionage fundamentals to Julian in a heartbeat.

The professor had lived in the glory days of the KGB and Julian's first years in the house in Alexandria were filled with lessons of linguistics, history, physical combat, current events, and, above all, intrigue.

With Irina being gone for weeks or months at a time, the three years Julian spent with the Professor went quickly and the foundations for the spy-world were created. Most days followed the same patterns; mornings were dedicated to studies of Russian, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Farsi, and Italian. After that the rest of the day would be divided between physical training and history/current events lessons.

During that time the Professor taught Julian about all the organizations that he had information on, and towards the end of the third year he begun an intensive study of weaponry. All of the talents Julian acquired were tested constantly by Irina, who, in the three years had purposefully not warmed to Julian, and constantly sent him out on small tasks to challenge him.

And things would have continued to progress this way had Irina not found a way inside The Forum, a Rambaldi organization run by Andrian Lazeray.

As Julian came in from his morning run, almost three years to the day of his arrival in Egypt, he was shocked to see Irina standing in the front hall as the maid and housekeeper directed men around the house, some packing and others covering furniture with white sheets. Puzzled he wiped sweat off his brow and approached Irina, taking the bottle of water she offered.

"What is going on?" He tried to keep curiosity out of his voice, because it would be a sign of weakness to show that he had been caught off guard.

Irina smiled at him, and then motioned for him to follow her into the study. Once inside she moved to gather papers off her desk and then turned to face Julian. "We are moving to London."

"I don't understand, I thought that it was too dangerous because of Lazeray." Julian tried as much as possible to say that name with calm, but that was asking a bit too much.

Irina smirked and then picked up a file and turned it over in her hands, "This contains everything we need to destroy Lazeray and even The Forum…"

With that Julian nodded and walked upstairs to pack his clothes and books, and a quick look into the Professors room confirmed that he had already been sent away. For a moment he felt alone again, but then the fire of future revenge fueled him.

Upon arriving in London a new form of schooling began. During the week Julian attended a boarding school near Cambridge, but weekends were spent training with Irina. As he grew he learned more about why they were in London, discovering that The Forum was based in Paris and that two of the most prominent members lived in London.

Irina's plan was complicated and was based on the fact that Lazeray would do almost anything to learn about things called, "The Chosen One" and "The Passenger", both of which dealt with Rambaldi and his prophecies.

Life continued much the same way until Julian reached his seventeenth birthday that was the year when Irina first sent him to LA to take pictures of a young girl who resembled her in many ways.

"This is a recon mission. In other words: Don't get caught because I wont be able to help you. Just take the pictures and get back on the plane. Do you understand?" Irina was grinding her teeth but Julian nodded, his eyes the usual icy blue.

"It will be taken care of." Years of training in linguistics had left him with a seemingly sophisticated British accent that hinted something of a Mediterranean background.

Irina nodded and he left her alone in her rooms of the London estate. After this, if he return unscathed, he would be ready to join her in the organization she had built. The years of impartiality towards him and coldness had created the perfect agent. He was cold, calculating and incredibly loyal to her, with no ties to the outside world.

Sending him to take pictures of Sydney was a test to see if he could keep her biggest secret, and in most cases the secret that she guarded from everyone else.

Thankfully Julian didn't disappoint because he was back in three days with two rolls of Sydney at UC Berekley, and Irina was ready for his final test.

"Tomorrow we end The Forum."

"Can I be of use?" He didn't even lift his eyes from the computer, where he was attempting to hack into the CIA office in LA where documentation of a new series of high powered guns were being analyzed.

"Actually I was hoping you would take care of some loose ends for me." She slid a file across the counter and he picked it up flipping through the pages.

"Uncle Boris?"

Irina smiled, "I wasn't sure you would remember him, he used to hang around Lazeray at the house when you were young. But in reality he is not your uncle, he is the money-man for the Forum," she paused and looked into cold blue eyes, "kill him."

Julian set down the file and turned back to his computer calmly, "I'll take care of it tonight."

"Good."

Finishing his task on the laptop, he stood and stretched his 5'11 frame, then headed to his rooms. Only when he was alone did he let out the breath he had been holding, and let his shoulders sag. It had to be done, there was no doubt in his mind that he would follow through with it but it still weighted on him.

Moving to a drawer beside his bed he took out a worn copy of War and Peace in the original Russian and opened it to the tarnished medallion he taken from his mother that night. Turning it over in his palm he pocketed it and walked to his weapons cabinet, pulling out his favored Glock, and putting it in the same pocket.

That night he shot 'uncle Boris' in the head and walked away smirking with eyes frozen to the core. On his way home he considered life and when he arrived home, faced Irina and told her that from that moment on he was to be known as Julian Sark, never Lazeray.

"I understand." It was all she needed to say.

That was the night when Sark was born as the second in the army of 'the Man', reporting only to Irina.

But Sark didn't show up on the Alliance briefing until four years later, when he delivered a very public message to the FTL, specifically Quan Li, from 'the Man'. The same day he appeared on the SD-6 debrief that Sydney attended.

"And I believe that brings us full circle." Sark looked up from his hands into Sydney's confused gaze.

"'I'm sorry."

He smirked again and looked at her with all the intensity that had been building during the hours she had listened to him talk, "I'm not."

"But, whatever our sentiments on my story that doesn't concern me at the moment, as much as something else does. You see, I have been sitting here trying to figure out why. Why do you care about any of this?" He was tired of all the pretenses and trusted Sydney to tell him the truth.

"A special committee ruled that you should be executed for you crimes in five days, that was three days ago."