Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! It's great to hear what you think. Here's (hopefully) another enjoyable chapter. Warning: contains naughty language, hence the rating.

Cheeky.

Secrets and Lies

By cheeky-chaos

"I feel like I'm losing my mind! Like I don't even know who I am anymore or what I'm doing or why I'm doing it!" - Sydney Bristow

Chapter Two

Sark sighed almost inaudibly as he picked the lock with his black gloved hands. Walking into the suburban house on silent feet, he gazed calmly around him and disarmed the security system with casual ease. Sark knew the owner of the house was dining at some romantic restaurant tonight and wouldn't be home until later, so he would have plenty of time to do what he came to do.

As usual, Sark was dressed in a black Armani suit and black leather gloves covered his hands. Walking into the study, he gazed about the room with icy blue eyes, before moving to sit at the computer. Within minutes he had the system booted up and he had broken through the rather poor password. Scanning the files on the hard drive, he blinked in surprise when he found much more incriminating evidence than he had bargained on. Sark's surprise wasn't because of the depth of the man's criminal activities – those he had already known. What surprised Sark was the blatantly careless way the man still kept them on his computer. A professional, and Sark considered himself a professional, would have known to make sure the files had been deleted at the first opportunity.

Although, when Sark saw the nature of the communications, he smirked slightly. But not even "love" notes such as those were worth the risk. Making a copy of it all, Sark let his eyes gaze around the room, before frowning when he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. "Yes?" he answered in his clipped British accent.

"Jules, I think it's time to get out of there." The softy accented voice informed him. "Romeo just dropped his date off and he's heading home."

Sark let a genuine smile cross his face at the sound of his sometimes-partner's voice. The curious mix of Russian and Irish accents, usually carefully hidden, drawled in his ear again. "His date didn't look happy with him either."

"Do I need to remind you that I hate it when you call me Jules?" Sark asked, gathering the small memory drive he had used to copy the files and carefully making sure everything on the desk was the same as when he had entered.

His partner chuckled. "Liar. You love it."

Sark suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, instead carefully exiting the house via the back door. "I'm leaving the building now." He said.

"Good, because Romeo's about a block away." His partner replied.

Climbing into the sleek, black and expensive car he had hired from the airport, Sark smirked slightly at the ease of the mission. He was good – the man would have no suspicions someone now had proof of all his dirty little secrets. "I've got a copy of the files. Shall I meet you at the airport?"

He heard the sound of a half-suppressed yawn on the other end of the phone. "I'll you there in about an hour."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I'm hungry."

Sark chuckled. "Very well. I shall see you in an hour." He replied, before snapping the phone shut.

I entered the briefing room carrying a large cup of coffee and large stack of files, flashing a smile at Weiss and Marshall, who were already seated and talking softly. I took a seat next to Weiss and waited for Dixon, Vaughn and my father to join us. I was still a little angry at Vaughn after our argument last night at the restaurant. It was silly, but something about the undercurrent of resentment and angry in his tone when I'd questioned him about his recent trip had rubbed me the wrong way. I felt a hint of foreboding whenever I thought about it and my instincts were screaming something at me – I just didn't know what it was. Or maybe I did. Denial wasn't just a river in Egypt.

Fortunately, all these dark thoughts were driven from my mind when Dixon and my father entered the room, closely followed by Vaughn. Taking his customary seat at the head of the table, Dixon glanced around at us all, as my father and Vaughn also took their seats. "As I'm sure you know, Vaughn recently took a trip to Moscow to speak to a contact about a possible sighting of Nadia and Sloane." Dixon began the briefing.

I looked at Vaughn and he shot me a sheepish smile, his green eyes contrite. I smiled back, feeling better at the apology in his eyes and ignored the feeling in my gut that something was wrong. "My contact didn't give me much." Vaughn took over the briefing. "But he did give me a location in Switzerland."

"We traced Sloane and Nadia to a private clinic in the Alps." Now it was my father's turn to speak. "We believe Nadia is still suffering ill-effects from whatever Sloane tried to inject her with."

My stomach clenched at the mention. It nauseated me to think of the suffering Nadia had been through at the hands of that madman... and that she was still at his mercy. "...easy to gain access to the medical records once inside." Weiss' nudge and Dixon's words broke into my thoughts about my sister. "Sydney, you'll be accompanied by your father."

"My father?" I echoed, surprised that it was not Vaughn coming with me and not too pleased at having to spend time in an enclosed space with that man.

Dixon nodded. "Out of all of us, you and Jack have spent the most time with Sloane. And he has proven to have a soft spot for you. If anyone can bring Nadia in, it's you two."

"We believed it more prudent to use the cover of a rich CEO enquiring about the medical facilities while accompanied by his daughter." My father's cold voice added. "A young couple would have been more suspicious."

I frowned, but nodded. I could tell from Dixon's expression that he wasn't pleased at my behaviour, nor did he understand it. No one at the office did – because no one knew about Wittenberg. I pasted a smile on my face. "No problem." I said.

The rest of the briefing past in a blur and before I knew it I was striding back to my desk. Vaughn caught up with me just as I got there. "Syd..." he began.

I turned to face him and saw the apologetic look on his face. "I'm really sorry about last night." He said. "I was feeling a bit tired and frustrated with everything that's been going on... and I know that's not a good reason, but... I am sorry."

This time when I smiled it was genuine. "I understand." I said.

"Good." He smiled back. "How about I make it up to you by buying you an ice cream when you get back?"

"I'd like that." I replied.

We flew into Switzerland twelve hours later and I felt like I was slowly being suffocated. My father and I had not spoken a word to each other the whole flight that had not been terse, uncomfortable and focused on the mission. I needed a break to clear my head – probably the worst thing to happen right now when I needed to focus on the mission. My legs itched to run; the world narrowed to the breeze on my face and the rhythmic sound of my feet pounding the ground.

But, as usual, what I wished for wasn't going to happen. Fixing a vacant smile on my face, I adopted the ditzy persona to go with the long blonde wig and skyscraper heels I was wearing. Latching onto my father's arm, I tried to my hardest to act like a loving daughter as we walked through the doors of the elegant and discrete medical clinic.

I chatted away absent-mindedly as we walked up to the reception desk, talking about the latest fashions and how I just couldn't be seen without the latest Prada handbag... As intended, people glanced over by gave me no real attention. I was just like every other too-rich daughter...

Taking out a makeup compact, I carefully powdered my nose as my father began talking with one of the doctors of the clinic, who was giving him the usual assurances of a "discrete clinic". Putting it down, I dug around in my purse again and dug out my lip gloss, which I also continued to apply, leaving the makeup compact sitting on the reception desk – right next to the computer.

"Shall I take you to see one of our private rooms, Mr. Donohue?" the clinic's salesman was saying. "So you can see for yourself?"

"That would lovely." My father said in a British accent. "Coming darling?"

"Ooh, goody!" I said, also using a British accent. "I can't wait to see what they look like! You must get the best views of the Alps from here! I was telling Suzy the other day that we should go skiing sometime..."

As I chattered on and Dad tried to look like a doting father, we wandered off towards the elevator and towards the upper levels of the clinic. I continued chattering away as we rode up to the fifth floor as the doctor began showing my father the facilities. Suddenly I stopped in my tracks, my hand going up to my mouth, almost in a parody of surprise. My father looked back at me, his expression all of doting concern. It was ironic that the best father/daughter relationship we had was when were in disguise.

"Oh no!" I cried.

"What is it, sweetheart?" my father asked.

I gave a ditzy laugh. "I left my makeup at the desk! I'm so silly."

"Well, you just go on and fetch it, darling." My father said. "We'll just be around the corner."

I saw the doctor who was showing us around roll his eyes slightly. I just grinned brightly, wanting this mission over as soon as possible. "Okay." I replied. "I won't be a minute."

Turning, I entered the elevator and made my way back down to the reception. "Base Ops, this is Mountaineer." I spoke softly, breaking radio silence for the pre-arranged check-in. "I'm on my way to pick up the disk."

"Copy that, Mountaineer." Vaughn's voice was reassuring to have in my ear.

Sauntering out of the lift, I walked over to the reception desk to grab the makeup compact I had deliberately left there. With apologies and a vacant smile, I grabbed it and sauntered back to the elevators. In the ten minutes it had been sitting next to the computer, the inbuilt wireless scanner would have successfully made a copy of the clinic's files.

The elevator opened with a discrete chime and I stepped in. Just as the doors were closing and I was about to make contact with Vaughn again, a woman pushed her way inside the lift, mumbling apologies in Swiss. I smiled vacantly at her and hoped she would get out before I did, so I could make contact with Vaughn again.

Suddenly, the woman spun around to face me. I tensed immediately, but there was no weapon in her hands. Her hair was long and blonde like mine, but it was straight where mine was curly. She wore a simple, but expensive designer suit that probably cost more than I earned in a year and large dark sunglasses covered her eyes. I regarded her tensely for a moment, wondering if the mission was about to go to shit.

"I bring a warning." She said and I could hear the urgency in her tone. Her voice held a curious lilt, as if the American accent she had abruptly adopted was not her own and her voice sounded strangely familiar to my ears. "Be careful who to trust, Sydney! Those close to you are not all they appear."

The use of my name by this stranger shocked me even more than her bizarre warning had. Part of me was grateful that apart from when I checked in with Vaughn, I was running radio silent on this mission. However, a larger part of me wanted to grab this woman, slam her up against the wall and demand she tell me what the fuck was going on. Before I could react, the elevator doors opened and the woman slipped out. I would have followed, demanded answers... but at the same time, an elderly patient and his nurse had stepped in, blocking my path. Forced to keep to the mission, I shoved the woman and her warning into a corner of my mind to worry about later. I was now determined more than ever to get this mission over and done with as soon as possible.

A few minutes later I strode into a room on the fifth floor to find the unconscious body of the doctor who had been showing us around lying on the nearby bed and my father waiting for me. Expertly and efficiently, I removed the small memory chip from the side of the compact and passed it to my father, who slid it into his PDA and waited for the files to download.

"Any problems?" he asked me, briefly looking up from the PDA.

"No, nothing." I lied.

There was a soft beep from the PDA as the clinic's files finished downloading. After a quick search through them, we had the answer we were looking for. "Room 542." My father said. "On this floor, east wing."

I nodded and the two of us began to move. Thankfully, the corridors of the fifth floor were deserted, so we saw no one who might question what we were doing. As we neared the room, Dad and I hesitated just around the corner, before he nodded to me. I nodded back and we both drew our guns. Carefully, Dad crept to the door of room 542 and opened it, before we burst inside. A second later, I let out a string of curses. The room was empty. Rumpled bedclothes hung half-on, half-off the bed, as if someone had left it in a hurry. One of the windows was wide open, curtains billowing in the breeze and a chair had been knocked over.

After a quick check of the room, Dad walked over to the bed. "It's still warm." He said, touching the sheets. "They can't have left more than ten minutes ago."

"It doesn't matter." I snapped in disgust. "Sloane will be long gone by now. And he'll go to ground after this – we won't have a chance in hell of finding them!"

My father gave me a sharp look. "We'll find them." He said firmly.

With a sigh, I turned on my comm. again to report the bad news. "Mountaineer to Base Ops." I said. "Sloane's gone."

"Gone?" Vaughn's shocked voice echoed.

"He must have paid off one of the staff." My father said. "Or maybe he saw us. It doesn't matter. He's gone."

"And he took everything with him." I added.

There was a slight pause on the other end of the comm. "Mountaineer, Raptor, you've got a bigger problem than that." Vaughn said, sounding tense. "Three security teams are en route to your location."

I shot a worried look towards my father, but his face was as impassive as ever. "Come on." He said, already moving to the door. "We'll go down the back stairs."

Shaking my head slightly, I followed him out of the room. He frowned when he looked over his shoulder at me. "We need a change of clothes." I said.

I saw the understanding flicker through my father's eyes almost before I'd finished my sentence, closely followed by what I could have sworn was pride. "I thought I saw a laundry room up the corridor." He simply said.

Just as my father had remembered, there was a laundry room a little further up the corridor and within seconds, both me and my father had come up with an alternate escape plan, being the highly trained spies that we were. The laundry room had everything we needed. The wealthy CEO and his ditzy daughter morphed into the sickly, wheelchair-bound patient and his young nurse.

Keeping my head down, I carefully wheeled my father down the corridor, heading towards the elevators. If this worked, then we should just be able to stroll out the front door. Under the blanket that covered his knees, my father was armed, both with his Sig and a tranquillizer gun, but I hoped we wouldn't need either of them.

We got into the elevator when it appeared and I pressed the button for the ground floor. Butterflies were doing somersaults in my stomach from nerves; it never stopped amazing me, but no matter how many missions I went on I always experienced that moment of pure, unadulterated fear that maybe this time it was over, that I'd get caught and killed. It didn't matter how many times people captured me and I escaped, or how many times I avoided death. It was always the same. So was the followed feel of the adrenaline kicking in, making me feel as if I was invincible.

A young doctor got into the elevator on the second floor, giving me a curious look when he saw me. "I haven't seen you around here before. Are you new?" he asked in Swiss.

I smiled back and nodded. "I'm Mr. Schmidt's personal nurse." I replied.

"Oh, the new patient from Bavaria?" the young doctor looked interested.

I nodded. "Yes, that's the one." I agreed.

Suddenly, the doctor's face turned stony. "There is no new patient from Bavaria!" he snapped, seconds before his eyes went hazy and he slid to the ground unconscious.

Looking down in surprise, I noticed the small tranquillizer dart sticking out of the man's neck and my father's hands around the grip of the tranquillizer gun, which was still pointed in the doctor's direction, before the elevator doors opened and everything went to shit. The ground floor broke into shouts and screams at the sight, as my father leapt to his feet and looked at me. "We have to get outside!" he said.

Tossing me my gun, which I hadn't been able to hide in my nurse's uniform, we sprinted out of the lobby of the medical clinic, dodging the security teams that were already running in our direction. I let off a few shots, careful where I aimed so as not to hit any of the screaming and running patients and staff. We burst out of the doors and I paused for a split-second, not sure which way to go.

"Sydney!" my father called urgently from my left; I turned and sprinted after him.

We darted around the corner of the building, leaping over hedges and spinning around startled patients. I grinned softly when I spotted what my father was heading for. Behind us, shouts rang out and once again I was thankful for the crowd; the security teams couldn't afford to shoot at us. The visitor's parking area was full of sleek, expensive cars – including one sleek, black Mercedes convertible. For an insane moment, I wondered if it belonged to a certain blue-eyed assassin, before dismissing the thought. Looking completely calm, Dad climbed into the car as if he owned it and began to hotwire it. I shot out the tyres of the nearby cars in hopes to delay our pursuers, before leaping into the Mercedes as Dad gunned the engine. We left them in the dust, Dad's expert driving and the odd gunshot from me making sure our pursuers never even came close.

I jerked awake from an uneasy sleep somewhere over the Atlantic, only to find I'd fallen asleep in front of my laptop. Looking over at my father, I saw he still slept, so I knew it wasn't him who had woken me. What had, I still wasn't sure. I had a vague feeling of trying to remember something, almost like the sensation when you saw something out of the corner of your eye. Nothing definite, but I knew I'd been dreaming about my missing two years.

Something about the video Kendall had shown me and his explanation didn't ring true for me. I wasn't sure what it was, and despite how I was convinced that Kendall would have lied to my face given the right reasons, I don't think it was that. I had the distinct feeling that I was the one who had held things back... kept secrets. But why? I must have known I'd remember, or what was the point of keeping secrets and then erasing my memory of them? It had been a year since Hong Kong... and still, I couldn't remember it.

I sighed, a truly weary sound, before I did what I always did when the frustration of trying to remember became too much – I turned my mind to other things. Shaking the sleep from my eyes, I went back to typing the report I had been writing before my nap. When a screen flashed up onto my laptop, I frowned. Then I let out a shocked gasp. Still trying to figure out what the other CIA team had been doing on a mission for the jewellery box when Kendall had sent me, I'd run a search for Agent Scott's name cropping up in any of the recent intelligence reports. I didn't know what I was searching for, but it seemed I had found something.

Only, the something wasn't good. With horror, I read the report and blinked when I saw the accompanying photos. Grainy and obviously taken from an orbiting satellite, they none the less captured the carnage of the scene. It seemed the office that Agent Scott and his team had been attached to in Washington had been completely destroyed last night. The office showed signs of gunfire, but it was the explosion that had torn most of it apart. Someone had wanted everyone in that office dead – and had gone to a lot of trouble to see it done. The only question was: why? And why did I have a feeling it had everything to do with Rambaldi?

Skimming to the bottom of the report, I was surprised to see that there had been a reported survivor... Agent Tomas Scott's body had not been with the deceased and it was assumed he had been a mole in the office to give whoever was responsible access. But somehow... that just didn't sit right in my mind. I didn't know Agent Scott. I'd never met him, yet something told me there was far more to this than was in the report. A bad feeling began curling in my gut...

...my life was about to get royally fucked. I could just tell.

To be continued...