Ten Hours
…
2:00 AM: Over the Atlantic
"There's ten hours between us tonight,
And I feel…like my heart will break.
'Cuz it's been way too long since I've,
Last seen your face."
The plane hit another bout of turbulence, shaking Vaughn until his teeth rattled. He was jarred from
his particularly ineffective bout of sleeping as the baby in the seat beside him began to scream – again.
Usually he had Sydney to curl up with; her head resting on his shoulder as his cheek propped up on her forehead. Whenever she was with him, beside him, he could sleep through anything. Tidal wave? Absolutely. Earthquake? Done it. Slept through every bit of it.
Unfortunately, Sydney wasn't on this flight. Their mission was a relatively easy op in France.
'Woo hoo France,' he growled in his mind as he tried desperately to ignore the shouting of the displeased infant being jostled on it's mother's lap in an effort to calm the endless squalls erupting from it's toothless mouth.
He'd always pictured taking Sydney to France on his own. Maybe even meet his mother, if Syd would go for it. Of course, the CIA had other plans. It wasn't as if they hadn't either one been to France before, quite the opposite. She'd saved his life in Cape Vera after the whole damned ordeal in Taipei, plus the elegantly ruined date in Nice. Add onto that the fact that he'd lived there for almost a third of this life, all these reasons seemed mute in comparison to one detail:
He wanted to take her to France. Not the CIA sending them to the beautiful country.
He sighed, sinking further into his chair as the infant curled up on his mother's shoulder, blinking over at him with wide blue eyes.
'At least it's not screaming anymore,' Vaughn grumbled to himself, keeping his displeasure to himself. It wasn't that he didn't like kids, quite the contrary. He loved kids. It was merely his situation, fatigue and boredom that was spawning the anti-kid mechanism everyone has when they've got a ten hour flight ahead of them and are seated next to an infant.
'Not including Weiss,' he grinned as he thought to himself, turning over and peering out of the porthole of a window he sat beside.
His thoughts once again trickled over to Sydney. Due to her extended meeting with Kendall and her father, Jack was more than happy to deliver the news of their separate flights to the couple.
So while he went home to pack, she sat through another boring meeting. While he drove himself to the airport, she was getting her op. tech. from Marshall. All in all, one would think that he got the long straw while she drew the short.
They'd think wrong.
Since he'd first met her, his hands had always fidgeted with the sudden urge to touch her. Tapping pencils, spinning his lucky coin – anything to try and keep his digits from roaming her toned body in scandalous ways before everyone present, up to and including her father.
Well…maybe not her father. Kendall, perhaps.
…
5:00 AM: New York
After a brief layover in New York, Sydney sat with barely opened eyes watching the few passengers around her. The extremely late hour ensured swift travel from gate to gate, as well as a flight with minimal amounts of people.
'If I'm lucky I won't have to sit next to anyone at all,' she thought to herself as they announced that the flight was boarding. "Flight 247 now boarding; non-stop to Paris, France."
"Thank God we're not having a pit-stop in the middle of the ocean," she commented wryly, not realizing that she'd spoken aloud until the young man beside her chuckled. She blushed, handing her ticket to the older, smiling woman before walking through the long tube-like tunnel to the plane.
Settling into her seat quickly, she was thankful that by the time the other passengers had boarded that the seats beside her were empty. Waiting – just to be sure – until they took off and were leveling out, she glanced around the fuselage. Seeing no one in her immediate vicinity, she kicked off her heeled shoes, unsnapped the buttons of her blazer and turned sideways to use the seats beside her as a footrest. Pushing up the armrests she stretched out. Heaving a sigh as she closed her eyes, she willed sleep to engulf her in it's pleasant embrace.
Unfortunately, sleep was following a different schedule. Unable to do anything but sit with her eyes closed and pretend, she groused and pulled her feet back up from the other seats, reluctantly sitting back up and staring at the warming sky - a timid shade of yellow-orange.
'Vaughn wouldn't have any problems sleeping right now.' A smile turned her lips up gently at the thought of Vaughn sleeping soundly through the plane hitting turbulence...a hurricane...a God of War setting the sky on fire...anything she could imagine and he'd be sleeping through it.
'Maybe he's too busy thinking about you to sleep.'
Stopping for a moment, arguing with herself, 'Nah'.
'It's only eight more hours - how bad can it be?'
…
8:00 AM: Still over the Atlantic
"What I'd give if you were here with me now
and I was...lost in your touch.
If I know my heart,
There's nothing I've ever wanted so much."
'This...can't...seriously...go...on...forever...can it?' Vaughn thought mentally, his eyes wide open as the baby beside him cried incessantly. He'd been staring - zoning really - up at the ceiling of the plane for well over an hour now, his magazine discarded into the pouch before him upside down.
Three bathroom breaks later, he'd given up on finding another seat on the stupidly crowded plane. 'Why the hell are so many people on a 2:00 AM flight to France?! I must be sitting here with at least one hundred CIA, FBI, NSC, and God knows how many more agents. Agencies are the only one dumb enough to assign operations at 2:00 in the morning.'
Fifteen minutes later
'Damn you Jack Bristow - for making me take a ten hour long flight without some eye candy.'
Fifteen minutes later
'Damn you crying baby for not letting me sleep on this damn flight.'
Rubbing at his tired eyes, the distraught mother finally stood up and carried the infant into the back.
'There is a God! Now all I need to do is try to fall asleep while it's gone and we're on easy street!'
Hunkering down and pleading with the powers that be to allow him to slip into a delightful respite, he was slightly annoyed when his cell phone vibrated against his leg. Forgetting completely that he hadn't turned it off, he pulled up the text message from Sydney, a large smile breaking out on his face.
-U'd better not b asleep-
Shaking his head, he sat back up and prepared to endure the rest of the flight. If Sydney was awake, he could stay awake too.
…
12:00 PM: Paris - Hotel Le Lavoisier
"There's ten hours between us tonight,
And I feel like I could die.
That all the pain would just...
Go away if I could look in your eyes.
And love you...just love you.
It's all I wanna do."
'I don't suppose that staring at the door is going to make any difference...will it?' Vaughn asked himself as he reclined in his boxers and an undershirt on the large king-sized bed in the ornate suite.
He'd arrived about an hour ago, waiting impatiently for his late girlfriend to join him. A bouquet of flowers was sitting on the night stand, the card lying open as Michael grinned. Lifting it up with swift fingers, he read and re-read the elegant handwriting of a Mr. Jack Bristow.
'Mission was phony, enjoy your weekend. CIA is paying for everything - so spoil her. J'
As he was replacing the note the lock mechanism on the door beeped and whirred, the door swinging open as Sydney all but poured into the room.
"I am so glad to see you." she muttered, tossing her shoes aside, her jacket finding a random spot on the floor before she flopped onto her side of the bed with a grunt.
Vaughn didn't speak, merely rubbing her back with one hand while lifting the card with the other.
"How was your flight?" Turning her head so she could see him, a lazy and almost sedated smile on her face, her arm propping her upper body while stretching her legs on the other end.
Again, without a response, he opened the card up and held it so she could read it.
"No..."
"Oh yes."
"My dad?"
"Isn't evil apparently."
Sydney laughed as she sat up, pulling the note from his hands and studying it with scrutinizing eyes. "Wow...this is really his hand writing too. That's...fun. So what...we have the whole weekend to ourselves?"
"Every minute of it. But right now...I'm gonna sleep because I couldn't on the plane."
The appalled look on Sydney's face made him chuckle as he slid under the blankets and she stood and began to undress, pulling her pajamas out of her suitcase at the foot of the bed. "You didn't sleep? Mr. Slept-Through-An-Earthquake?"
"Yep. You weren't there next to me, Syd. It's hard to sleep without you."
Tossing him a bright smile before pulling up her long, cotton pants, and slipped her shirt off and climbed into the bed. The stretchy camisole accented her figure as Michael's jade eyes scanned her body from top to bottom. Clambering underneath the covers with him, their mouths met instantly in a kiss of greeting, passion, and love.
"I missed you too, baby. Ten hours is way too long."
"There's ten hours between us tonight,
But tonight...can only last so long.
By 12:00 tomorrow baby,
You'll be here in my arms.
And I'll hold you close to my heart,
And I'll pray...you feel my love.
Until that day where time or space,
Will never again separate us.
And I love you...oh I love you.
It's all I'll ever do.
'Cuz I know you're the one,
It just feels so right.
Would it be okay with you
If I loved you for the rest of my life?"
...