-1Epilogue

She sat in the sun as the waves crashed into the sand ahead of her and stared at a picture of Nadia. She missed her deeply and didn't know what had happened to her. It had been a month since Vaughn and her left the US and headed to South America to a small quiet town where people would leave them alone.

Sydney thought it would be the beginning of her new life, and in many ways it was. She found herself falling back in love with Vaughn. But things had followed her there. Sark followed her there. His voices, his breathe against her cheek, his cold touch around her shoulders, it all followed her to the beach house where she was supposed to be happy again. The difference this time was that she wasn't alone anymore. She had Vaughn. He would hold her at night while Sark tormented her. Vaughn would kiss her and make love to her and all the pain would disappear. She felt safe with him. But it wasn't over yet.

"Are you ready?" Vaughn asked her as he appeared behind her on the beach.

"She's here?" Sydney asked nervously.

"Yes. She's inside the house."

"I'm ready," she said with a smile. "I can do this."

"I know you can," he said as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek.

Sydney followed Vaughn inside to where she found a woman standing in the living room of their beach house. She was looking at a framed picture of Nadia. There were many pictures of her in the house.

"You must be Sydney," the woman said with a warm smile as she outstretched her hand to shake Sydney's.

"Yes," Sydney said shaking her hand.

"I'm Silvia Alvarez. You can call me Sylvia." The older woman had a glow about her. She was dressed in casual clothes that were colourful and had a flavour of South America and the Latin culture to them. There were strands of coloured beads around her neck and several pendants of different symbols that Sydney didn't recognize.

"I must admit, I've never been to a healer before. I don't think I would have put much faith in seeing one before I came here. But the locals spoke highly of you. I've done some research into what you do. I'm ready to try it," Sydney said with optimism. "I'm ready to get rid of these demons of my past and move on." Vaughn smiled behind her.

"I'm glad," Sylvia said. "That's the first step in recovery. Now come and sit. I'll get started right away."

Sydney led her to the couch and they all sat down. Sylvia took some candles and some herbs out of her bag and began laying them out on the coffee table. Sydney would never have imagined turning to a healer from older world cultures, but Vaughn had convinced her that she couldn't go on forever with the torment of Sark following her path. She never wanted to see a psychiatrist again. Nonetheless, she was skeptical.

"Close your eyes," Sylvia said to both of them. The old woman began to pour special sand on the table and drew a symbol in it. She then took Sydney's hand and drew the same symbol on it in some special oils. She began to chant in another language.

After a few minutes, Sydney heard a familiar word and opened her eyes in shock.

"Rambaldi" the woman said in her chant.

Sydney looked down and saw the eye of Rambaldi in the sand.

“Who are you?!” she demanded to know as she grabbed onto the woman’s wrist tightly.

“This is your destiny, Chosen One. It is the only way you will be healed. Trust in your destiny. It will bring you no more harm.”

Suddenly everything went dark. Sydney found herself back in the hospital next to Nadia’s bed.

“Nadia!” Sydney exclaimed. “Nadia, you have to wake up right now! Wake up. Wake up!” She shook Nadia’s shoulders until a whimper came.

“Sydney?” Nadia said quietly, slowly coming to.

“You’re okay,” Sydney cried with a relieved smile.

Suddenly Nadia looked up at her with wide eyes, gazing straight into Sydney’s eyes with a warm but piercing look.

“Trust in your destiny.”

Sydney looked at her with awe and confusion. Then she saw Sark looming in the corner.

“They are trying to deceive you,” he said with a cold laugh.

“No. No no no no no!”

Nadia grabbed hold of Sydney’s wrist tightly. “Make it right.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She’s deceiving you. They are all deceiving you,” Sark said as he wrapped his hands around her neck and began to choke Sydney.

“No! Go away! You aren’t going to control me anymore.” She turned around and began to choke him back until he withered away before her and crumbled to dust.

Sydney sighed with relief, tears in her eyes. She turned back around to Nadia, but suddenly everything had gone black again.

“No no no! Why can’t you all just leave me alone?!” Sydney screamed.

She saw Vaughn’s face all of a sudden. Sydney looked around and saw that she was lying in bed. She didn’t recognize where she was.

“What’s going on?” she asked as Vaughn looked at her seriously.

“You’ve been in and out of it for the past 3 days. We didn’t know if it would work,” Jack said as he appeared in the room.

“What are you talking about?” Sydney asked confused.

“The antidote to Nocturne. We found another one. We were skeptical as to whether or not it would work. But you've been hallucinating and paranoid ever since you left the hospital that we had to find something," Vaughn explained

"But we've been at the beach. We've been happy. I don't remember anything about an antidote or you going off to find it."

"No. We've been in the countryside in Oregon for the past couple weeks. Your father secured the location for us and we've been hiding here. But a few days after we got here, you started hallucinating violently. You were crying all the time and screaming a lot. You would start fighting with people that weren't there, or even us thinking that we were someone else. Every time we tried to talk to you about Nadia and how she is conscious and recovering, you wouldn't listen to us. You insisted that she was dying. We couldn't get through to you. Jack and I both used all our contacts and favors and searched for anything that could help you. We found an antidote. But we didn't know if it would work. We administered it 3 days ago and you've been in and out of consciousness. We thought we might loose you. But it looks like the worst of it is over. It might work after all." Vaughn's serious look melted into a smile.

"You're back, Sydney. You're back," Jack said as he approached her and gave her a nod. She was back. She was Sydney Bristow again.