Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! This chap has quite a bit of naughty language, so I beware! Let me know what you think ;)

Cheeky.

Secrets and Lies

By cheeky-chaos

"The illusion of freedom is better than none at all." – Jack Bristow

Chapter Three

Groaning, I slapped the alarm with far more force than necessary. It crashed to the floor, the loud noise drawing me further from sleep that the angry beeping had. Almost to insure that I didn't slink back into sleep, the phone rang a second later. Bleary eyed, I glared at the offending world. "Okay, I'm up!" I snapped.

Shoving the covers away, I staggered from my bed to snatch up my ringing cell phone. "Bristow." I said tiredly.

"Sydney, we have a situation. We need you here as soon as possible." My father said, with no preamble.

I sighed, knowing this was not going to be good. "I'll be there in twenty minutes." I replied, before saying a short goodbye and hanging up the phone.

Groaning, I stumbled into the kitchen to put the coffee maker on, knowing that I wasn't going to have any coherent thoughts until I'd had at least a cup. Waiting for it to percolate, I wondered absently what had happened now. Maybe Sark had turned up again and was threatening the world with some sort of global destruction or something.

I took a cup of coffee into the shower with me and true to my word, I was in the office in twenty minutes. My hair might have been a little damp, my shirt definitely had creases and I was pretty sure my socks didn't match, but I was there. And at 7:30 in the morning, just after getting off a long plane flight, I thought that was damn good.

"Hey, Syd." Weiss greeted warmly as we rode up in the lift together, still half-asleep.

"Hey." I replied. "Have any idea who's trying to destroy the world today?"

Weiss just shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "Maybe today we'll get somebody new. Maybe the world's supermodels are revolting and threatening to not put on those teeny, tiny skirts anymore."

I smiled at Weiss's bright chatter as the doors opened, only to come face to face with my father. "Briefing." He said. "Two minutes."

Rolling my eyes to Weiss, I dumped my purse on my desk and headed to grab another coffee before we found out the next disaster we faced. Vaughn gave me a warm smile as I entered the room, looking as tired as I felt and I smiled warmly back. Taking a seat, I tried to clear the last of the exhaustion from my brain, just as Dixon and my father walked into the briefing room. "Thank you all for coming in early." Dixon began. "We received a report an hour ago on Sloane's location."

My heart began to pound in excitement, chasing away the earlier frustration at having just missed Sloane in Switzerland. Dixon shot me a knowing look as hundreds of questions burst into my head, but I managed to keep quiet as Dixon continued. "The report indicated that Sloane and Nadia are going after a Rambaldi artefact knows as La angustia." Dixon said.

I tried not to gasp in surprise at the familiarity of the name, holding my face as impassive as I could. La angustia had been written all over the files I had found in Wittenberg – along with the information that the device could only be found by 'the Chosen One' (a.k.a. me). But I didn't want to think about the files I had found in Wittenberg – or the cold way my father had profiled me, right down to which Rambaldi artefacts I would find and how likely I would be to kill my mother when I found out who she was. And I certainly didn't want to think about the other person mentioned in those files!

"We decided that the best course of action would be to obtain the device before Sloane can and propose a trade." I realised with a start that my father had taken over the briefing while I had been lost in thought.

"The device for Nadia?" Vaughn asked as I tried to appear as if I had been listening the whole time.

My father nodded. "Agent Vaughn, Sydney, you leave for Bolivia in three hours."

Getting up to leave after the dismissal, I was not surprised when Vaughn wandered over to me. "Are you alright?" he asked. "You looked a little concerned."

I smiled brightly at him, determined not to let any of my worried thoughts show. "I just really want to get Sloane." I said, and it was the truth in a way. "I can't stand the thought of him loose in the world."

Vaughn grinned in understanding. "Me either." He agreed. "Hey, heading down to Marshall?"

"Yeah, in a second." I replied.

I headed back to my desk to shove my purse in the drawer and gather a few things before we headed down to Optech, while Vaughn waited a little way off talking to Weiss. My cell phone rang just as I reached my desk. "Bristow." I answered.

"Sydney Bristow?" an unknown male voice asked.

"Who is this?" I demanded.

The man on the other end of the line hesitated for a second. "It doesn't matter." He said. "You're in danger, Agent Bristow."

Immediately, his warning brought back memories of the strange woman in Switzerland. "In danger?" I echoed. "Who is this?"

By now, I was getting mad. The man hesistated again and I thought I heard him sigh softly. "My name is Thomas Scott." He said.

My eyebrows rose slightly at his admission and I gazed surreptitiously from side to side around me. Carefully, I moved to a more secluded corner of the office. "Agent Scott?" I said. "Your team was supposed to have been killed two days ago." I left the by you unsaid, but I knew Agent Scott would have been able to hear it anyway.

"We had a mole in our office." Agent Scott said shortly.

Some instinct told me he was telling the truth, despite what the report had said. But still... Agent Scott had been the only one to walk away. "No one else survived the explosion." I told him.

"He wouldn't have." Scott said somewhat coldly. "He was shot in the head by the same guys who shot up the office."

A convenient explanation, but inexplicably, I believed him. "So why am I in danger?" I asked.

"There's another mole in your office." Scott replied.

I blinked in surprise at his answer. "There was." I growled as Lauren Reed's face flashed before my eyes.

"I'm not talking about Lauren Reed." Scott said.

"How did you..?"

"Kendall." Scott interrupted. "Look... there's something I need to tell you, but I can't do it over the phone. Can I meet you somewhere?"

Thinking fast, I ran through possibilities in my head. I still wasn't entirely sure why I trusted the man, but I did. "Bolivia." I said. "La Paz, in twelve hours. Murillo Square, next to the statue."

"I'll be there." Scott agreed, before hanging up.

I joined Vaughn again a second later and noticed the curious expression in his eyes, having obviously noticed my phone call. Not sure why, I hesitated before telling him what it was about. "It everything okay?" he asked.

"Sure." I smiled brightly. "Just the doctor."

"The doctor?" Vaughn looked concerned.

"Yeah, just a check up." When Vaughn continued to look concerned, I explained a little more, hoping that my lie would just get him to drop the issue. "You know, the one girls have to do from time to time..."

He blushed slightly as we headed for the elevator down to Marshall's lab. "Right." He said, as we headed off to see our boisterous friend for the mission plan.

Twelve hours later, I stood next to the statue of Pedro Domingo Murillo as the cool night breeze ruffled my hair. Persuading Vaughn that I just wanted to go for a short night walk had been fairly hard, but thankfully he had been tired after our plane trip (the flight was spent squashed in the economy section as we played happy tourists), and let me leave after a token protest. Which left me impatiently waiting for Scott to show and hoping that by trusting my gut, I wasn't walking into a trap.

"Sydney?" a voice asked softly from behind me.

I turned to find the same man I had seen in Budapest standing just off to the side. He wore black – jeans and light jumper – and his face was just how I remembered it. The slate-grey eyes still held the same observant and intelligent gleam and the strange scar twisted on his forehead. "Agent Scott." I returned with a short nod, relaxing enough to take my hand away from the gun I had hidden in the waist of my jeans.

Scott's eyes narrowed. "How did you know it was me?" he asked. "And just how did you find out about what happened in Washington? The report about my office would have buried under hundreds of others. You wouldn't have seen it unless you were looking."

His terse demand caused me to glare back at him, but he was right to be concerned. I would have... hell, I was! I decided the only way I was going to get anywhere was to be truthful. "I saw you in Budapest. I wanted to find out who you were." I said.

"That was you?" Scott snapped, looking surprised. "What the fuck were you up to?"

Seeing the sudden tense and accusing look on his face, I shook my head. "It's not what you think. Kendall sent me."

"What the..?" Scott said, but it seemed to make him relax just a little. "Why would he send you when he knew we were going?"

The last seemed to be muttered more to himself, than me, but I answered anyway. "Maybe he doesn't want anyone to know that he has the jewellery box." I said.

Scott sent me a sharp look. "That makes sense." He said, rubbing a hand over his close cropped black hair. "He works for the Trust. It's them who probably wanted it."

"He works for the Trust?" I snapped, a bit too loudly, because Scott took my arm and guided me to the shadows under one of the nearby trees.

"Yeah." He answered, then sighed. "This is not why I came. Why did you trust me enough to meet me alone?"

I shrugged slightly. "My gut." I answered truthfully.

Scott seemed to find this a perfectly reasonable, if slightly amusing, answer. "Did you tell anyone you were meeting me?"

"No." I shook my head.

Scott seemed relieved at this. "Good." He said. "I think the mole is someone very close to you. Someone you trust."

"What makes you think there's a mole at all?" I asked. "It could just be a result of what Lauren Reed was up to."

"It's not." Scott said. "When I found out about the mole in my office, I searched his computer. There was communication on it... from your office. And the sender was definitely a man."

A shiver went through me as my mind automatically began to try and find anyone who was acting suspiciously. "What makes you think they're close to me?" I asked.

"Because it mentioned that you were being watched." Scott answered.

I shivered again, anger rising. "Fuck." I swore. "Why does the scum of this world always have to end up stalking me?"

Scott shrugged apologetically. "Rambaldi." He answered. "I'll try and find out anything I can and pass it on, but you need to be careful."

"Why?" I asked before I could stop myself.

Scott smiled slightly. "Because I don't like Rambaldi anymore than you seem to and because it would be nice to have your help when I try and convince the CIA that I didn't betray them."

"Done." I agreed and put out my hand for him to shake.

With a start of surprise, Scott looked down and then back up at the determined expression I was sure was in my eyes. "Done." He echoed and shook my hand.

The climb to the hiding place of La angustia was hard, but I enjoyed it after all the stress of the last week. I'd always enjoyed the outdoors and even climbing in the Andes was fun... as a change, anyway. I'm not sure I wanted to do this every mission. Vaughn was great company, which also helped I imagine. For a while there, all my worries fell away and we were just like we had been before my missing two years.

Taking a long drink from my water bottle, I looked over at Vaughn. "How much longer?" I asked.

"Not much." Vaughn answered. "A few feet or so."

Smiling at him, I continued to climb, eventually reaching a small flat area that opened out into the mouth of a large cave. "Bingo." I muttered when I caught sight of the Rambaldi symbol etched above the entrance.

Coming up beside me, Vaughn paused for a minute to catch his breath, before looking towards me. "Let's go." He said.

We entered the cave, after getting out the torches we had brought with us, and followed the narrow rock corridor deeper inside the mountain. When the passage finally widened, Vaughn and I found ourselves in a wide stone cavern with a large hole in the roof that let in the early afternoon sunlight. Along the farthest wall were rows and rows of metal doors set into the rock, each having a number etched into them. They were half rusted and covered in dust and cobwebs, but they still looked remarkably solid. Vaughn cursed softly when he caught sight of them. "Which one is it supposed to be?" he asked.

I grimaced and shrugged. "No idea." I said, but the words of the Wittenberg files was coming back to haunt me.

The Chosen One is the only one to find La angustia, as only she will know which one it is...

"Great." Vaughn muttered before digging around in his pack for a crowbar. "Give me a hand, will you?"

Half an hour later, we were hot, frustrated and no closer to finding La angustia than we had been when we started. Not only were the doors almost impossible to open, but the two we had opened had been completely empty. "This could take weeks!" I snapped, annoyed.

"Come on." Vaughn said reassuringly. "There's got to be something here that gives us a clue. Something about Rambaldi..."

I was struck by a sudden thought. "Of course!" I grinned in triumph. "Number 47!"

Walking over to inspect the doors again, I grinned when I found number 47. Coasting my fingers lightly over the metal, I looked at the ancient metal for a small gap to help pry it open as Vaughn wearily grabbed the crowbar behind me. Then I saw something weird... "Ow!" I said, followed by a string of curses, when I cut my thumb on a jagged stretch of metal.

Then I almost jumped when the door gave a slight hiss, groaned and then popped open. "Shit..." I breathed, opening it. "Vaughn!" I called out in a louder voice. "I found it..."

Trailing off in horror, my eyes widened when I caught sight of the scene behind me. Everything seemed to take place in slow motion as I felt my entire world shatter around me. My heart broke into a million pieces and almost absently I became aware that I had started sobbing. Vaughn stood in front of me, a disgusted expression on his face, as he held a silenced Glock in my direction. Standing right beside him, a gun also in her black gloved hands, was Lauren Reed. A woman who was supposed to be dead, for fuck's sake!

"Hello, Sydney." Lauren said maliciously as my word continued to shatter around me, before walking over to Vaughn and placing a possessive kiss against his lips.

Vaughn smiled coldly as Lauren stepped away and part of my mind was screaming at me to do something, but I just couldn't move. "Give me the artefact, Syd." Vaughn said.

"Why?" I sobbed. "Why, Vaughn? How could you do this?"

Vaughn sneered at me. "Well, for starters, my name isn't Michael Vaughn." He said. "It's Cole Reynard. And how do you think, Sydney? I was planted at the CIA so I could get close to you... you are, after all, the Chosen One."

I felt sick as Vau... no, Reynard's... words echoed in the air. "You were a plant?" I repeated dumbly. "This was all... a lie?"

"A very distasteful one, too." Vaughn/Reynard continued. "If I'd had to pretend to be that sickeningly devoted and patriotic 'Vaughn' for one more day, I might just have snapped and shot everyone."

Vaughn/Reynard's green eyes hardened. I still couldn't believe the man I loved had turned out to be an evil plant... anymore than I could watch Vaughn's beloved eyes look at me with cold disgust. "Hand over the device, Sydney." He said. "Don't make this any more painful than it has to be..."

Before anything else could happen, the survival instinct I had honed from years as a spy and double-agent kicked in. I threw the device at Lauren, causing her to shift her aim from me in order to catch it, before snapping out a roundhouse kick at Vaughn/Reynard's gun. He dropped it with a curse, but blocked the punch I had aimed at his face. Twisting my body, I lashed out with another furious kick and sent Vaughn/Reynard staggering backwards. Abruptly, gunshots echoed around the cave and I scrambled for cover, not sure who was shooting. I was still so shocked from Vaughn's betrayal that it didn't even occur to me that I still had my gun in the waistband of my jeans.

Leaning back against a pile of rock that I was hiding behind, I felt my hands begin to tremble again and tears gather in my eyes. This could not be happening to me!

"Sydney!" I harsh, but very familiar voice snapped out as a black-gloved hand grabbed my chin hard enough to leave bruises.

I found myself staring into an Arctic blue gaze as bullets whizzed around us, throwing chunks of rock into the air when they hit the cave walls. What the fuck was Sark doing here? Belatedly, I realised he must have been the shooter. "Sark?" I yelled in surprise, jerking my head backwards to escape his grip and cursing when my head slammed against rock.

Thankfully, the pain helped clear some of the daze from my mind. "What the fuck are you doing?" I snapped as he let off a few shots.

Turning cold blue eyes in my direction, Sark smirked. "I would have thought that was obvious, Agent Bristow." He said. "Saving your life."

The arrogance in his words jolted me from the rest of the daze, and I snarled wordlessly in his direction as I whipped out my own gun and peered above the cover of the rocks. Spotting Vaughn/Reynard near the entrance to the cave, I glared at him before squeezing off a few bullets, cursing when he managed to avoid them all. Rage began to replace the shock and I concentrated on killing the people that had caused me such pain, blocking out everything but the black-clad assassin next to me.

"Fuck!" I snarled when I ran out of bullets and had to fish around in my pocket for a new clip.

Taking his opportunity, Vaughn/Reynard headed for the entrance and escape, Lauren hard on his heels. When I leapt to my feet to follow them, Sark grabbed my arm and yanked me back down again. "They've got re-enforcements outside the cave." He replied to my furious glare. "Their orders were to capture you and they didn't think they'd manage it without a fight."

When I made no move to leap to my feet again, Sark let go of my arm, before smirking in my direction. "Of course, they should have known it was even stupid to try."

"Why are you helping me?" I asked in a hollow voice, the betrayal catching up with me as the immediate danger past.

"Perhaps we can discuss this in the car?" Sark asked, almost conversationally as we both heard scuffling noises near the mouth of the cave.

"What makes you think I'm going anywhere with you?" I snapped, but it lacked any of my usual venom or anger.

Sark arched an eyebrow and replied in that condescending way of his. "Because how else are you going to get back to civilisation?"

When he saw that he was going to get no response from me, he scowled and grabbed my chin again. "If you're not going to help me rescue you, Bristow, I will leave you behind."

"After all the effort you put into rescuing me?" I asked dully.

Sark smirked again. "I am a cold-blooded bastard, after all." He answered, repeating my often-used insult.

Transferring his grip to my arm, he yanked me none to gently to my feet and tugged me to the back of the cave and down a hidden passage I had not spotted before. Rising out of my morose feelings of betrayal enough to shake off his grip, I followed him as he headed at a reasonable jog down the twisting corridor and back out into the sunshine, this time on the opposite side of the mountain. We made it down the mountain-side in record time and I had to snort in disbelief when I saw the expensive black Mercedes parked a little below us.

Whatever retort Sark was going to shoot back was lost as he grabbed my arm again and yanked me behind a tree. I found out why a second later as bullets bit into the dirt where we had been standing. Giving me a sharp look, Sark raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to fall apart again, Bristow?" he asked.

"No!" I snapped, yanking the gun from my waistband.

Pointedly ignoring him, I turned to fire back on our pursuers, noticing that Vaughn/Reynard and Lauren were now accompanied by at least three other men. I fired back, my gaze narrowing on the bastard that had betrayed me after everything I had gone through for him...

Crying out in pain as agony burst into life on the side of my head, I almost dropped my gun as I sagged to the ground. With what sounded like a long suffering sigh, Sark tugged my arm again so that I was more hidden by the tree, but kept firing. "Jesus, Bristow." He said to me. "Did you even see the one on your left?"

When his clip ran out, Sark ducked down as low as he could as automatic fire thudded into the tree's trunk above. Digging in his pocket, he drew out another clip and his car keys. "Don't even think about leaving me behind." He said, passing the keys to me. "I mean it, Bristow."

Pain still shooting agonising pains through my head, I barely stopped long enough to glare at the man that had been my hated rival for so long, before crawling down the narrow track behind us towards the car. Blood slid in a hot, sticky track down the side of my face, staining my sleeve red when I reached up to wipe it away and I knew the head wound was a bad one. The way my vision kept wavering in and out of focus was also a clue. Of course, it could have been worse – I could be dead.

Fumbling with the keys when I got the car, I just managed to get the door opened before Sark joined me. With a cold glare, he took the keys from me hand, shoved me in the passenger door and was in the driver's seat with the engine running before I could even get my door shut. Slamming the car into reverse as bullets raked the air where the bonnet had been a split-second ago, he swung the car around on the dirt road in a cloud of dust, before roaring off at breakneck speed.

I leaned gingerly against the back of my seat, my head throbbing worse than ever and maintained my death grip on the armrest beside me as Sark swung the car wildly around turns. Slowing the speed a little when no cars pursued us, Sark shot me an icy glance, before opening the glovebox and fishing out a wad of white gauze. "Try not to bleed too much on the seat." He said. "It is leather."

Grimacing, I pressed the gauze to the wound on my head as a wave of nausea swamped me. White spots danced across my vision and I knew I was seconds away from passing out. "Just don't dump me in a gutter somewhere." I told Sark before the darkness claimed me.

When I woke again, I found to my amazement that I was lying in the soft sheet of what looked like a hotel – and not a cheap one at that. I had to smile slightly at that, despite the completely surreal nature of the situation. Trust Sark not to want to rough it. Groaning slightly as I sat up, I noticed that my head didn't spin too badly and the pain almost felt less brutal that a torture session with the North Koreans.

Glancing to my side, I noticed that someone had thoughtfully left a glass of water and a bottle of painkillers next to the lamp. I didn't want to acknowledge that it had been Sark, because Sark and thoughtful just didn't belong in the same sentence. Swallowing a couple, I absently gazed about the room as I waited for them to kick in. The room was elegantly decorated, with two small bedside tables on either side of the double bed I was lying in and I could see a glimpse of the bathroom through the partially open door. A small table sat beyond the bedroom, in what looked like a sitting area.

When I felt a stab of pain in my head, I reached up to find that someone had cleaned my wound and carefully placed a plaster on top. Again, I couldn't believe this was Sark. Had I found the room strewn with the bodies of its former occupants, I would not have hesitated to believe Sark was responsible... but making sure I was alright and leaving painkillers for me? That was not the Sark I was used to.

With a small gasp, I looked down and found that he had also changed my clothes. Bastard. At least that was more in character. Sark wouldn't have let a little thing like unconsciousness stop him from getting a look. Sighing, I carefully got to me feet to walk around the room. I saw the neatly followed pile of clothes sitting on a chair in the bathroom, my gun sitting on top, along with soap, a toothbrush and a razor. Wandering through to the sitting room, I also found it empty of smirking, icy-eyed assassins. But then I had already known Sark would be long gone.

What I did find, however, was a note and two envelopes sitting on the table in the sitting area. Walking closer, I picked up the note first, noting the neat handwriting and knowing it could only have been written by Sark.

Bristow,

There is no need to gush your wondrous thanks for the rescue. It was not a purely selfless act, I assure you. Simply put: you are no good to me dead. I have left two plane tickets and passports for you. One will take you back to your father and the disgustingly boring life you had at the CIA. The other will send you to Ireland. If you're finally ready to see the light and start working for me, take it. I will find you. And please, do me the courtesy of not sending an armed group of CIA agents to meet me. I did save your life, after all. And you've ruined one of my cars already.

S.

The note was arrogant and condescending and just oh, so Sark. It almost made me smile. Then his words crashing down on me and I realised just what had led me to this moment in the first place. Vaughn wasn't Vaughn and he had betrayed me. Sark had saved my life.

What did it all mean? And, more importantly, what the fuck was I going to do now?

To be continued...