So I'm gonna put on my strappy shoes and my tiny dress and I'm gonna try.

1. What color does your hair look like when it's wet?
Darker blonde.

2. Do you remember the date of your prom?
Josh Brixton

3. Was your last kiss long and sensual or short and sweet?
Long and sensual.

4. When did you last have sex with your ex?
My ex? That would be Prague era and honestly I can't even recall.

5. Whose bed did you sleep in last night?
My own.

( More Questions )

[locked from APO personnel]
ENCRYPTION KEY-RN884-7534Aii45

Things that I am rather fond of in regards to one Julian Sark

- that despite knowing it probably drives him a bit nuts not to ask, that he doesn't ask about work.
- that after a fourteen hour flight instead of waiting to see me at dinner he saw me as soon as I walked in the door.
- even though we'd only been actually seeing each other for a few weeks in actual 'terms' he still came to see my parents when I visited them.
- he cooks
- he's extremely attentive to details and my needs
- he's pretty darn easy on the eyes and he has an accent. I'd put those in different little sections but I didn't want to seem shallow
- he's an amazing kisser [among many other things]
- while I can't tell him everything about work I don't feel like I have to lie to him either
- he appreciates a well thought out picture message
- he misses me while I'm gone, and I'm sure he worries too
- I don't mind that I get distracted at work with thoughts of him
- he makes me laugh, which I'm sure would surprise a lot of people
- he takes my breath away at times when breathing is extremely important
- he's the first to suggest just staying in bed all weekend
- he makes me want to stay in bed all weekend
- the way he kisses my shoulder before getting out of bed no matter for what
- the way I know he watches me brush my teeth in the bathroom just to see the normal routine that I know is almost like borderline OCD.
- he speaks at least thirty different languages all of them fluently
- he trusts me not to turn him in [honestly it'd be counterproductive right now]
- he'll sit through a movie he hates for me [I haven't tested this just yet]
- he likes watching the Ocean's movies with me even though I pick them apart at how they really wouldn't work
- he dances with me
- he knows the risk we're taking and he doesn't care
- he makes me realize the risk we're taking and I still don't care
- he brings me flowers and breakfast in bed
- he makes me feel comfortable putting the more daring side of myself out there
- he never makes me question my job despite the opposite sides of the lines we're on
- he let me talk about the events from Ixtapa instead of just avoiding them
- he lets me tease him rather easily
- he's impacting my vocabulary because I really don't say 'rather'
- he didn't take payment in Tunisia
- he tells me I'm beautiful and I believe him every time he says it
- seeing him at the end of the day makes the twelve hours I spend staring at lines of code feel like nothing at all
- he makes me very glad that I was willing to meet him in that hotel bar when all my instincts told me to stay away
- he makes me happy
- I love him

Stepping off the plane Rachel had already given Vaughn the phone with the memory card that held all the client information from the mark. Anyone that had ever done business with that syndicate now was about to be flagged in their database. Thankfully she'd actually managed to get a few hours of sleep on the plane, but it was barely enough. The drive to her condo felt like it took forever, but soon enough she was parking in the driveway. She didn't even rummage through her glove box for the clicker to get into the garage. Who cared if she parked in her own driveway? There was no getting of her bags out of the trunk, just grabbing her purse and house keys out of the front pocket.

She was already shrugging out of her jacket by the time she reached the door, and once the door was open she'd toe heeled off one shoe and was happily onto the other. The keys were dropped atop her jacket that was now on the floor. Shoes scattered nearly equal distance from each other before she'd peeled her shirt off over her head and discarded that onto the floor. Jeans came off in the middle of the hallway as she yawned inwardly shrugging her shoulders a bit as she stretched her back before finally making it into her bedroom.

( Sark had gotten in on the 7PM flight... )

Her blonde hair once more was wound up beneath a wig, long black tresses cascaded over her shoulder and her usual blue-grey eyes shone back with green matching the low cut dress she was wearing. Black heels clicked on the sidewalk outside Pi and the only thing on her was the absolutely tiny cell phone that was 'the newest thing' according to Marshall.

***

"Okay so see they love their little hi-tech gadgets. It's all small things with like little bits that light up? I mean it's sort of like this thing I just got Mitchell to help stimulate his left brain activity. It lights up according to-"

"Marshall?"

"Right sorry. Anyway, see it's this tiny cell phone, three gig of storage on the memory card and you should get fantastic service coverage in there. Also, pull this little glow stick thing up and- Instant Wireless Traffic Beacon. This baby will be able to pick up on every single cell in the building that is accessing the internet via phone. You're guy? Should be downloading some heavy files. Bandwidth should sky rocket for the guy. Just.. dial nine and it should sort the signals by transfer rate."

"Got it. Then once I find his signal, I can piggy back off of it and transfer his files to me?"

"Exactly. The file server shouldn't notice two people accessing it because you're actually accessing his phone instead. So you're just stealing off a little cell phone network... via the network."

"Piece of cake."

"Tiny, like cute portable piece of cake... I can put little jewel stickers on it?"

***

*Membership Name?*

Rachel smiled up at the guy at the door, slipping the card from within her bra just beneath the curve of satin from her dress, *Jeon has my name.* It wasn't exactly difficult to get access to the club, Dixon had a contact in the area and he owed him a favor. Which Rachel wondered just how many favors these people still had outstanding across the globe. With a press to his ear piece he confirmed her access and he nodded as she entered the club.

It felt like just about every other dance club in Hong Kong that she'd been to, which was actually now up to three. Loud music, and people dancing. It was just different to not know exactly if the song was really about some girl needing to get drunk and sleep with the singer. She could pick up a few of the phrases from the lyrics but it didn't seem to translate right. Still she slipped through the club finding a corner of the bar and ordering a drink.

Rachel took a seat resting her chin in her hand and idly stirring her drink, her voice low she pressed her comm on and smiled speaking low into her palm, "So I'm in but I don't see him yet." Picking up her cell phone she glanced to it pulling up the antennae that Marshall had rigged, and pressed nine sorting the traffic of the wireless, "Yeah he's not here yet."

*translated from Cantonese*

It's a fourteen hour flight. Fourteen hours and a few minutes, but thankfully it's direct. She's gotten up and walked the distance of the cabin a dozen times now. Fingers running through her hair, breathing deep and trying to not think about things she's not supposed to be thinking about. Fourteen hours on a plane and she's only halfway through the flight. It's three in the afternoon back in Los Angeles and it's already six in the morning Friday in Hong Kong. She's moving forward in time, but part of her feels like she's been pulled backward.

Once more she crosses the length of the cabin. Her hands now grazing across the tops of the seats in the private jet.

This is her life. Private jets and fourteen hour flights to Hong Kong. Fourteen hour flights that will end her up in a small dark back corner of a bar cloning the signal of a cell phone just in an attempt to get a list of contacts from another person. It was a lot of flying for something so small. Still she knew that Marshall couldn't do it. He was barely staying away with Mitchell giving him such a hard time at home. Terrible Two's or maybe it was Three's now. Rachel made a note to make sure to ask how he was doing, despite knowing it would eventually launch her into a long discussion about sleep patterns of children.

Once more from the front to the rear of the cabin. It was twenty paces if she went slow, and only twelve if she took on longer strides. She cracked her knuckles on this pass.

"Rachel."

The tone was there from Vaughn and she sighed, "Sorry."

"You know I never took you for the fear of flying type."

Furrowing her brow a bit and shaking it off she took a seat, "I'm not. I mean not really. It's the length of the flight. It's that the day is ticking away faster than the flight. It's that I want to sleep through it but I still haven't been able to pull that off. It's... it's that it's only halfway done."

It was more than that too, but she wasn't going to talk to Vaughn about that. Of all the people she was not going to tell, Vaughn was at the top of the list. Because the one thing she'd gathered from the files she'd read on Julian Sark when he stopped being Bob Brown was the fondness Vaughn had for beating Julian up. Of course Rachel still had to smirk to herself in the moment because despite Vaughn breaking his nose a few times he healed well and the smirk lingered because of course now she was thinking about him.

"What was that?"

Startled Rachel glanced to Vaughn, "What was what?"

"That look," Vaughn glanced to her with a look that she was sure he tried to use with Sydney when she was keeping things from him. Did Sydney keep things from him? Did she have to because of her job? "Rachel there was a look."

Raising an eyebrow she denied it like the wind, "There was no look." Oh but there had been and Rachel was now worried that Vaughn had this tiny piece of information and wasn't going to let it go. "I'll stop pacing."

"Feel free to pace Rachel, the cracking of your knuckles though?"

She glanced at her hands, "Oh... sorry." Clutching her hand with her other she squeezed a bit tighter rubbing her thumb into the join of her thumb and index finger of her other hand, pressing up and against her hand a bit before shaking both hands loose. Barely twenty minutes had passed now and she knew there was still just over seven more hours left to her flight. She'd land in Hong Kong around ten at night Los Angeles time, and if she knew more about where Julian was right now... she could figure out what time it would be for him.

This was her life. Fourteen hour flights on private jets, and not knowing exactly how far away she was from him at all, but feeling every mile of it.

The Gibson's loved Scrabble, mostly because it gave them all time to make up words just to see who would dare risk the challenge of it all. Rachel had been in the lead most of the night because her vast knowledge of words that didn't seem like actual words always came in handy. As the night wound down though she got to thinking about what Julian had been up to while she was at dinner with her folks. She excused herself for a moment and headed to the bathroom where she opted to send him a picture message down the front of her shirt. The reply she got back rather quickly showed her that he was either sitting around doing nothing, or he was working and had his phone nearby. The second shot was sent and she headed back to the front room.

( The casual conversation in text messages... )

Growing up my parents pretty much used me as the litmus test for parenting. Anything they weren't really sure was the right way to handle they sort of just went with their instinct and if it went wrong, they knew not to do that with my brother Eric. Of course most the big choices didn't even really come into the picture until I hit fourteen and was suddenly almost five foot eight with hips and a sway to my walk that made my mom literally try to hug me to her side when we went out to the mall, or she'd make me walk with Eric who was a constant struggle of pulling me every which way he wanted at that point.

Still dating wasn't even allowed until I was able to drive. The belief was that if I was old enough to drive I was old enough to know how the hell to get myself out of the situation should it go badly. Not that I really wanted to take the guys car and leave him stranded, but if it had to go to that Mom thought that was the best option. Of course I didn't really date in high school even though I could. I was involved in too many extracurriculars to even have time for a boyfriend and I guess I never actually thought about the whole 'on the weekends' thing that most the other girls did.

( When I went away to college though... )