Chapter 14

When Sydney woke up the next morning, she was in a very good mood. First of all, it was Sunday and so far she was off. It was something she had learned to really appreciate since it didn't happen that often.

Second of all, the date with Danny had gone well, more than she was expecting considering she had been a bit reluctant to go. Yes, she had fun. She hadn't been swept off her feet, but she had a nice evening and would probably call him again. But what a coincidence it had been to see Vaughn and Weiss at the game!

Sydney smiled. She was glad she had been able to convince Vaughn to stay as her handler. That would be the third reason she had waken up with a smile on her face.

She suddenly heard noise in the kitchen and remembered it was SSMD… Fran's abbreviation for Spaghetti Sauce Making Day. Not sure Sydney could be there to help her, Fran had enlisted Will to help her. Sydney smiled at the thought. Will was probably in a foul mood about having to wake up that early… Maybe she should just get up and help them?

She hurriedly got up, put on some sweats and an old t-shirt and headed to the kitchen. Too late. Will and Fran were already arguing.

"These carrots are for the sauce!"

"Just one, Fran! It won't even make a difference. I haven't had breakfast!"

"Hey guys!" exclaimed Sydney.

Both her friends turned to face her. Fran looked particularly happy to see her.

"Girl! Come on, spill!"

"About what?" asked Will, eating his carrot, completely lost.

"She had a date last night!"

"A date? With whom?" he asked, puzzled.

Sydney hesitated for a second, not knowing how to talk about her date without hurting Will. She had known for quite some time that his feelings for her went deeper than friendship. Unfortunately for him, he was more like a brother to her and she knew that would never change.

She finally opened her mouth to say something but Francie was faster.

"I hooked her up with Daniel Hecht. He's a medical student. He was at that Halloween party last year, remember? The guy in a surgeon's outfit…"

"Oh, yeah, I remember. Very original for a wannabe doctor," Will mumbled.

Francie shot him a dark look but focused back on Sydney.

"Anyway, how did it go?"

"Pretty good. We had fun."

"And…?"

"And what?"

"Did he kiss you?"

"Nooo… We just hugged, Miss Nosy."

"Are you going to see him again?" Will asked, staring intensely at his carrot.

"Yeah, I think so…"

"But how will you find the time to see him? You're always away on some business trip…" he continued resentfully.

Francie immediately reacted to his comment.

"Will you cut her some slack? I'm so glad she's finally gotten a man!"

"Of course, if it means you are going to entertain us for years with the story of how you matched them up!"

"That's not true! Don't you know how I-"

They suddenly stopped when they saw Sydney walk away, heading for the front door. She had had enough of the bickering.

"Syd! Where are you going?" Will wondered.

"I'm going for a run," she answered before opening the door. She hadn't closed it before Francie and Will were going at it again.

"Pffff… Can we take a break?"

Vaughn couldn't believe his ears.

"Eric, we've hardly been running for five minutes!"

"I know, but… uh… I think I hurt my foot."

"What?"

"Look, there's a bench right there. We'll just stop for two minutes, okay?"

Vaughn rolled his eyes.

"Okay."

"Good."

Weiss sat down and patted the space beside him.

"Sit down, bud."

Vaughn made a face but obeyed.

"Okay, what was that about?" asked Weiss using a confidential tone.

"What?"

"Resigning as Sydney Bristow's handler."

Vaughn sighed, as he suddenly understood Weiss' plan. Talking about Sydney. He had wondered what in the world had gotten into his friend that Sunday morning to call him and ask to go running in his company. At first he had been surprised, but then, having noticed his pal had put on some weight in the last months, he thought Eric just wanted to get back in shape. Of course he would help him to do so. That was what friends were for.

What a fool he had been. Now he was stuck here, having to answer Weiss' questions about his new asset. That was probably the last thing he wanted to do right now. Before seeing Sydney at the hockey game, he had agreed to talk with Eric about what had happened in Tuscany, thinking he was going to resign anyway. But now that he was staying, admitting he had some feelings for Sydney Bristow was out of the question.

"I'm staying," he stated.

Eric raised an eyebrow, surprised.

"What? How come?"

"Sydney convinced me to stay. Last night, at the warehouse."

Eric contemplated that piece of information for a moment before asking:

"Any particular reason you made that decision?"

"I really don't know why, but she seems to trust me. I couldn't let her down."

"Huh. Any OTHER reason?"

"What are you trying to make me say? You seem to think I'm nourishing some feelings for Sydney… Which I don't."

"Come on, Mike. You should have seen yourself when she entered that airfield. I've never seen a handler worry that much for his asset. I've never seen YOU worry that much about anybody. Just admit it. You have a crush on her."

Vaughn sighed. He hadn't planned on telling his friend the truth about his feelings for Sydney, as insignificant as they were. He knew this 'crush', as Eric had put it, would pass. Meanwhile, he was convinced he could totally handle it. He thought it wasn't even worthy of mentioning to Weiss. If he did, if he told someone about those feelings, they would be 'out there', and that would only cause problems. But he also knew that his pal wouldn't let this go. So he better tell him something. Anything.

"Obviously she is an attractive woman," Vaughn begun.

"Obviously."

"But that's it."

"Really?"

Vaughn sighed again, letting a bit of exasperation show.

"I may want to protect her, too. She doesn't have many people in her corner. Plus she is our only chance to bring down a major terrorist organisation. Our best bet is to keep her alive."

Weiss stared at him, evidently not buying a word of it. But he chose to let it go for now.

"No more than that?"

"No," Vaughn stated firmly. "Can we go now? Alice and I are supposed to go to her mom's today."

"Okay. But no more running. I'm too old for this."

"Hey Dixon! Did you have a nice weekend?" Sydney asked her partner when she sat down beside him in the conference room the following morning. Dixon greeted her with a warm smile.

"Hey Syd! Yeah, I did. Diane and I took the kids to the Santa Barbara zoo. Did you know there was a crooked neck giraffe there?"

"Yeah, I-" Sydney began, but she stopped herself when her boss entered the room. Sloane immediately distributed black files to everyone present and explained:

"On page one, you'll find a reproduction of a drawing made back in the 15th century by a man named Milo Rambaldi. From what we've learned, Rambaldi was a scientist, architect and artist, but also a prophet of sorts."

"A prophet?" Dixon wondered.

Sloane nodded.

"Yes. It seems he foresaw the modern age. He was designing machines centuries before that particular twinkle appeared in anyone else's eye. We know that, scattered around the world, are dozens of Rambaldi artefacts and that if they are combined, they form some kind of device."

"What does this device do?" Sydney enquired.

Marshall got up uncertainly, looking at Sloane, waiting for his permission. Which he got.

"We don't know. Uh, well, we suspect it could be a weapon capable of massive destruction, but, uh, well… We're not sure."

He sat down and Sloane went on:

"Rambaldi has become a priority for us, we want to learn what it is before anyone else does. So Dixon, Sydney, you're going to a Madrid vault to steal a lockbox containing a Rambaldi sketch with what appears to be digital code written on the back. There actually are two sketches, which, when seen together, reveal the entire code. We already have the first sketch and the first half of the sequence code. However, you should know that K-Directorate is also after the second sketch, so be careful. That will be all."

The briefing was over.

"I have a feeling we may soon have the pleasure of meeting again with our old friend Anna Espinosa", Dixon said sarcastically as he got up.

"Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me…" Sydney replied as she gathered her things.

She and Dixon got out of the conference room and then went their separate ways, both needing to get ready for their upcoming mission. Sydney hurried to the parking garage. She had to get home to pack, but also to tell Vaughn about her mission. Back when she had met with him before going to Tuscany, he had set up a way of telling him about her assignments. She was to connect onto the Internet and log into a certain discussion board. From there, she would send a personal message to someone nicknamed 'Boy Scout' and detail her mission, without of course forgetting to erase all traces of that message from her computer afterwards. Then she would get the 'Joey's Pizza call' signalling her to meet with her handler.

"Hey," Vaughn said as he entered the warehouse later that morning.

"Hi," Sydney replied, getting up from the crate where she had been sitting, waiting for him.

Vaughn wasted no time and began:

"Devlin wants you to follow through on Sloane's orders. Apparently, we're both after the same missing piece of code."

Sydney was stunned.

"You're kidding me."

"Nope," Vaughn replied, tempted to smile at Sydney's amazement.

"You already knew about Rambaldi?" she questioned.

"I didn't. The agency did. DaVinci meets Nostradamus. Personally, I don't buy it."

"Well, tell the CIA clerk in Barcelona to prep for a dead drop. Worst case I'll encrypt the code on a Radiohead MP3 and leave it on Audiogalaxy."

"How did Russian underground find out about Rambaldi?" Vaughn asked, curious.

"Hey, you're the intel guy."

He smiled briefly and asked:

"What can you tell me about this woman? Anna Espinosa?"

Sydney's jaw clenched.

"She was born in Cuba, raised in Russia. One of the last of the Cold War babies, go-to officer at K-Directorate for work and active measures. About a year ago, I had a meeting with an informant in Yugoslavia. Low level, just a guy with intel who needed the money. Anna recorded the entire conversation with a parabolic mike from the building next door."

"How do you know?"

"Because as I was shaking his hand to leave, she blew the back of his skull with a sniper rifle, even though she got what she came for. Her way of telling me I was out of my league," Sydney explained, disgusted.

"Be careful," Vaughn couldn't help but to say.

"Yeah. Anything else?"

"No, just… How was your weekend?" he asked with a shy smile.

Sydney was a bit surprised by the question but answered:

"Great. I actually got to spend time with Francie and Will," she said, realising at the same time that Vaughn had no idea who they were. She was about to explain but Vaughn was quicker.

"Will… is he the guy you were with Saturday night?"

She didn't know why, but she felt kind of uncomfortable to tell him about Danny.

"Uh, no… that was Danny. Francie is my best friend and roommate and Will is… well, my other best friend."

"Oh… How strange is it that we met at the hockey game, huh?"

"Yeah. So you and Weiss are friends?" she asked politely.

"Yes. We go back to college…"

Sydney acknowledged the answer by nodding, and then a question came to her mind:

"Well… Maybe you can tell me… When I meet Weiss the other day, he showed me the piece of paper where 'Lisa' had written her supposed phone number…" she said, not able to stop herself from blushing recalling that moment. She was embarrassed, but she went on: "… and asked me if that was my handwriting. Do you know why? I was wondering…"

"He asked you that?"

Vaughn was surprised at his friend's guts. So that was why Eric had finally given up about their gamble. He didn't have any other option… He silently cursed his friend. Now he had to tell Sydney about that stupid bet…

"Uh… Well… He probably wanted to be sure it really was your handwriting, because… well… we sort of… sort of had a bet," he blurted out.

Sydney raised an eyebrow.

"What? A bet?"

"Back in Slovakia… If I were to get a girl's phone number despite my supposedly bad pick up lines, he was going to take me to a Kings game."

"Bad pick up lines?" she repeated, amused.

"Yeah. Weiss doesn't think too highly of the way I approach women," he said, chuckling.

"I see… 'Lisa' gave you her number, so I guess you won?"

"Yeah…"

Sydney didn't say anything for a moment. Following Vaughn's revelation, part of her felt a bit disappointed. He had flirted with her because of… a bet. Not because he liked her. But it was better this way. Now that she knew she wouldn't feel so awkward when thinking about their first meeting. Plus she understood that he technically hadn't been cheating on Alice when he had flirted with her, and that was a good point on his behalf.

Smiling, she said:

"Well I have to agree with Eric: asking for the time isn't exactly original! But the turtle thing saved you. It was cute."

Vaughn smiled too and nodded. He couldn't deny the fact that 'Mark' hadn't really been creative! So he added nothing and Sydney didn't either. After one last teasing smile, she walked away. Vaughn followed her with his eyes, thinking how enjoyable Sydney Bristow's company could be when she dropped the agent's façade.

And he prayed she would come back safely.