Chapter 6:

Sydney's eyes drifted closed in sleepiness in the darkness of her room, wrapped in Vaughn's comfortable arms, and she strained to stay awake long enough to mumble, "You know what I miss here?"

"What?" he asked, kissing her head resting in the crook of his neck.

"Alarm clocks," she answered in a murmur, quickly falling asleep after their hour of talking and lovemaking. "I want you to stay here for the whole night."

"So do I," he whispered, trying to think of a way that might be possible. He sat up a little when he remembered something. "Wait a minute."

Sydney slid off of him and sat up on her elbows as he jumped out of bed and lit a lamp beside the bed. Pulling on his pants to walk across the room toward the wardrobe, she asked, "What are you doing?" as he opened it, reached behind her clothes, and revealed a secret door that opened in the back.

"When my cousin James would come to visit when I was a child," he explained, "we would often play in all of the secret passageways in the house." He pointed to the doorway with his thumb. "This one leads to the basement."

She shook her head, "How does that help us?"

"There's another door from my room that also leads to the basement." He picked up his shirt from the floor and put it on as well, buttoning only a couple of the buttons, leaving it untucked. "If I can find it, then I can use it to get into my room, and it won't matter how long I stay here." Grabbing a nearby lantern from the mantel of her fireplace, and lighting it, he planned to check it out, and told her with a grin, "I'll be right back."

She smiled at his childlike enthusiasm, but still lightly warned, "Be careful."

He smiled back at her and then disappeared in the dark hole with his light, and she heard the quiet creak of his footsteps down what she assumed was a set of stairs. It was nearly a full fifteen minutes later, according to his new pocket watch he'd left beside her bed, when he returned through the same hole in the wall. "Did you find it?" she asked curiously.

"Yes," he nodded happily, setting the lantern back in its place and extinguishing it with one hand, "And I even brought you this." Approaching the bed, he pulled a small bouquet of flowers from behind his back and handed them to her.

Sydney recognized several varieties in the bundle as those collected from the enormous amount of flowers he'd set about his room the day before, and couldn't stop the grin that radiated from deep within her as she breathed them in. She pulled his face down to hers for a well-deserved kiss and then suggested, "Since you've solved our little sleeping in problem, why don't you get back into bed?"

He stood back up with a smile, dropped his pants to the floor as she set the flowers down on the nightstand, and then he turned off the lamp, and climbed into bed beside her, gathering her back into his arms. Waiting until her cheek was resting against his shoulder, and her arm was wrapped around his waist, he confessed, "I think tomorrow will be the first time in a long time that I will actually feel fully rested."

"Me too. And we'll need it." At his slightly questioning look she could just make out in the darkness when she leaned her head back to see his face, she explained, "For facing your mother at breakfast." She sighed as she got comfortable again, and he could sense the fear in her breath. "Are you nervous?" she asked before he could.

"A little. But…" his voice trailed off as he decided to tell her his reasons for wanting to tell his mother so soon. Stroking her hair away from her face, he told her, "It has to be done soon." He sat up a little so that he could look directly into her eyes through the dark room. "Sydney, you left everything for me…your life, your family, your friends, the people you love…all for me." He paused with the weight of it all. "And when I consider that, I'm almost…ashamed that it's taken me so long to do this little thing of confessing my love for you to my mother. I owe you so much more than that."

Sydney rolled and pushed herself up onto her hands beside him and held back the tear in the corner of her eye as she strained to see his face through the veil of darkness in the room. She swallowed the lump in her throat at the words spoken by the man she loved, and leaned down to kiss him, and then said, "Thank you. But you were wrong about one thing." He looked curiously at her until she explained, "I left everyone I loved except the most important one…you."

Vaughn was thankful he'd remembered the secret passageways in the house, because it was well into the morning when he and Sydney awoke to the sounds of the birds chirping outside, and the daylight streaming in through the windows. Kissing her goodbye one last time after he'd dressed, he carefully tiptoed down the musty, secret stairs, and peeked into the basement before crossing the room to the passage to his bedroom.

Twenty minutes later, after he'd changed into a fresh set of clothes, he stepped out into the hall and ran into Sydney emerging from her room as well. Without hiding their mutual feelings, they said good morning to each other, and then descended the stairs together for breakfast. Amèlie was already sitting at the table, drinking her morning tea when the couple came in and greeted her. Vaughn swallowed nervously as he pulled out Sydney's chair and prepared to speak, standing behind Sydney with his hands on her shoulders.

"Maman--"

"Michel--" they both spoke at the same time, and being the gentleman that she'd raised him to be, he nodded for her to go first. She narrowed her eyes at the positioning of his hands, but went on, "Elizabeth was quite upset last evening after you left. Would you care to explain yourself?"

"It's simple, Maman. She was allowing everyone to believe that our engagement was still intact. I told her to correct it." He purposely left out the blackmail part.

"Why the hurry to make sure that your break up is well-known? Do you not realize the embarrassment of such public knowledge?"

"Yes," he nodded, "but I also know that it is wrong for everyone to believe I'm in love with one woman, when I'm really in love with another." Amèlie stared at him for a moment as the thought registered in her mind, and then her eyes slowly slid from Vaughn's down to the woman below him. Sydney was blushing nervously, staring back at her, and when Amèlie ventured a look back up at her son, he nodded. "Miss Bristow…Sydney…" he squeezed her shoulders, "Sydney and I are in love."

"Since when?" Amèlie asked the obvious. "She has only been here a few days. And before that, it has been months since you last saw her."

"I know," he nodded again. "But I can honestly say that I fell in love with Sydney at first sight."

"But you were engaged!" Amèlie exclaimed.

"Maman, my engagement to Elizabeth was a mistake from the beginning. I've always known it, but I kept up the charade to make you happy." He scooted to Sydney's side and looked down at her. "But now I've found the one person that makes me happy." Meeting his mother's eyes again, he asked, "And I hope that is what you would wish for me too."

"Well," Amèlie said finally. "Miss Bristow seems to love you too, so I guess there's nothing to be done. However, we will have to give it some time before we announce the engagement--too soon would be…unthinkable." She shook her head disgustedly.

Vaughn smiled, despite his mother's negativity and walked around the table to kiss his mother's cheek. "Thank you, Maman."

"Don't thank me now--we still have the announcements to make." She stood up to leave. "I'm going to skip breakfast--I seemed to have lost my appetite."

As she started to leave the room, Sydney spoke for the first time, "Thank you, Madame Vaughn."

Amèlie stopped and met Sydney's eyes briefly. "Welcome to the family, Miss Bristow."

The couple was quiet for a few moments, looking toward the door where Amèlie had just exited. Finally, Sydney murmured, "She didn't seem incredibly happy about it."

He knelt down beside her. "She's just worried about the possibility of rumors of my having an affair. That's all. Give her time. She'll love you almost as much as I do."

Sydney placed her hand on his cheek, and leaned over to lightly meet his lips with her own. "I love you."

Hearing the clearing of a throat behind her, they broke apart and Vaughn stood up beside her. It was Josephine. "There's a man for you here, miss," she said and Sydney furrowed her eyebrows, cast a glance at Vaughn who was also confused, and turned back to wait for Josephine to continue. "He says he's your father."

Sydney stood up slowly in shock as the maid told them they could find the visitor in the parlor, and then left them. She turned to Vaughn beside her and shook her head, "Vaughn…how…?" she mumbled, the unasked question caught in her choked throat. He was just as stunned as she as they walked out of the room, with Vaughn's hand in hers in silent support, across the foyer to the parlor just off to the side.

Jack Bristow stood up from the small, ornate couch as they entered the room. "Dad?" Sydney asked automatically, letting go of Vaughn's hand long enough to close the gap between her and her father to hug his neck. "What? How?" she managed to ask over his shoulder while she continued to grip him tightly.

He pulled her back away from him, and held her face with one hand. "You look beautiful, Sydney. I'd forgotten…" She could tell that some time had passed by the addition of more gray to his hair, and the slightest hint of a few new wrinkles around his eyes. He looked to Vaughn and nodded a greeting, taking his hand from Sydney's cheek to shake the younger man's hand.

"How long…has it been?" Sydney interrupted.

"You left five years ago."

She shook her head as tears began to glisten in her eyes. "And you came back to see me?"

He nodded, "A lot of things have happened since you left, and…when…" he stopped completely, and continued on a new thought. "I asked Marshall to find out when the next window opened."

"How is everything? SD-6, the Alliance--any progress?"

He nodded again. "We took them down last year, thanks to Weiss taking your place, just as the Prophecy had stated. Marshall and Dixon both work for the Agency now."

"Good," Sydney said emotionally. "That's good." She cast a glance over at Vaughn and reached out for his hand. "How is Eric?"

"He's good. Married. Has a baby on the way. He wanted me to tell you that it's a girl and they're planning on naming her Sydney after you."

She tearfully smiled at her future husband when Jack asked, "How are things here?"

"Fine," she smiled. "Different, but I'm adjusting."

"This life seems to suit you. You're practically radiant."

"Oh," she squeezed Vaughn's hand as she explained, "We just told Michael's mother about us a little while ago."

"She took the news well?"

"Well, no, but she didn't throw me out of the house either, so that's a good sign, I guess," Sydney joked. She turned sober again as she gazed at her father, suddenly realizing how much she had missed him. "So, how long can you stay?"

"Up to a week. I…I actually came to tell you something. Or more accurately, to show you something." At their puzzled looks, Jack passed them and led the way to the front door, and Sydney and Vaughn both followed obediently. Opening the door, he stepped down the few steps to the ground and waved to someone off to the side of the building.

A moment later, an older, thin but muscular brunette stepped into their line of sight, and it took a few seconds for the recognition to sink in for Sydney. But when she saw the way her father slipped his arm around the woman's waist, and a memory of the same action with the same two people happening when she was a child, tears sprang to her eyes for the second time in the last hour. "Mom?"

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