A/N:Hey,guys! Once more, thank you so much for reading and reviewing!

Please don't throw things at Vaughn (or me). As I see it, he is just too hurt, too lost, too afraid and, most of all, feeling too guilt (for not being able to protect Sydney; for not having found her sooner), to see things straight and make them right. He'll get better, though, you'll see. He is Vaughn, he deserves a chance; don't you think? ; )

Kim and milady89, you're both right about Weiss. He is figuring things out. (Someone had to, right?)

RocknVaughn, thank you for asking about Lauren; this is something I should have made clear from the beginning: Lauren won't be Covenant in this story. Not that I like her or anything (I don't!), but you see, it would be impossible for Vaughn and Weiss to maintain cover if she was a mole. Plus, I always felt that making her a traitor was an easy way out of the mess in season three and it wasn't necessarily for the best. I mean, I actually like season three (I know, I know: I'm a masochist…), but I'd much rather see Vaughn go back to Sydney only because he realized that he loved her – and only her.

Anyway, let's go back to the story. Love you all.

Monica

Chapter twenty

I wandered around Prague for the next days. Vaughn tried my cell several times, but I simply didn't answer. I didn't think I could handle talking to him. I knew I would have to figure things out eventually, but it was just too soon. I needed time.

One late afternoon, walking down a narrow alley, I saw a symbol on a shop window that I recognized. It was the picture stamped on my mother's books, the first editions my father had bought her during their marriage. That was the bookstore they had found together on a trip to Prague, where he would return many times later in a gesture of love that would end up helping her hideous KGB assignment to succeed.

All my love, forever and a day… he had written in every single one of those books. The KGB had used them to send encrypted messages to their asset; orders to kill CIA agents; Vaughn's father. Still, those books made me think of a love so deep, so strong, that it could beat all the time in the world. And in fact my father's love for my mother had gone beyond her death, beyond the discovery of her betrayal, beyond her coming back as Irina Derevko and her second betrayal. I was that love's child. I had it in me, carved in every fiber of my being. I was made of that love and I knew it was that love I felt for Vaughn.

So I went inside that little shop and asked the clerk if they had any first editions by Tolstoy. He showed me the thick volume of Anna Karenina. I went back to my hotel holding that Tolstoy-long book in my arms and I called Vaughn to tell him I'd be in Rome the next morning.

……………………………………………..

When I arrived at the airport Thursday morning Vaughn was there waiting for me.

"I was so worried" he said hugging me tightly "I tried to call you so many times..."

"I'm sorry. I'm here now." I gave him a sad smile.

"Are you all right?" he asked, and I knew he wasn't fishing for anything.

"Yes, I am." I answered trying to sound normal.

"Shall we go see our house, then?" he cocked his head slightly with a smile.

"Yes, of course."

We drove to the Ancient Apian Way, a cobblestone paved road from the times of the Roman Empire, and crossed Porta San Sebastiano, one of the many doors to the ancient city of Rome, taking a curvy road surrounded by trees. It was late September, and the yellow-brown leaves were beginning to fall, giving the landscape shades of gold. I felt as if I was getting into a different reality. Vaughn stopped the car at the end of the road, in front of an impressive gate, which opened to reveal a large lawn. Standing on the center of it, I saw a huge two-story house, surrounded by cypresses. I fell in love with our villa at first sight. The ocher shade on the walls and an ancient fountain on the front yard gave it an antique-like quality, but the green ivy climbing up the walls broke the excessive sobriety the place might display.

Vaughn let me out of the car and took my hand, leading me to the entrance, a double-arched porch with marble floor. He opened the heavy wooden double door letting me into the foyer. Inside the walls were painted in soft yellow and the arched ceiling in white. A Persian carpet covered the marble floor and beautiful still-life paintings showing flowers and fruits adorned the walls. A double glass door at the back of the foyer seemed to open to a conservatory. I started to walk in that direction, but Vaughn stopped me. "Later" he said softly – it was the rose garden, as I would soon find out.

To the left of the foyer I found two large rooms with big fireplaces but without any furniture – "I thought we could have some fun decorating" – Vaughn explained – and a fully equipped kitchen, from which a narrow stone stairwell led to a wine cellar. I was speechless and Vaughn watched me seeming quite pleased.

"Given what you do every time we enter a simple hotel room, I thought I should give you a house with plenty of place for you to put your 'spy sense' into action" he said with a glint of laughter. I gave him a smile.

I went back to the foyer and crossed it getting to the right wing of the house, entering another unfurnished room. A very elegant marble stairway landed there and large window panes let the sun light inside. They seemed to overlook the conservatory or internal patio or whatever was that area I had glimpsed before through the glass doors on the foyer and I went to look out them, but once more Vaughn stopped me.

"We'll see that later." He told me faking severity and I eyed him curiously.

"This room is gorgeous." I said spinning around.

"It is, isn't it? There's an old grand piano in the garage, left by the former owner. I thought we could have it restored and put it here." Vaughn said behind me and I remembered the piano in his house in Normandy.

"Lovely idea. I play it, you know? The piano." I turned to face him.

"You do?" He was very surprised and in fact I had never mentioned that to him, not as Sydney, not as Julia. "That's great. We can play together." He smiled. "I used to do it with my mother a lot."

"I'd like that." I smiled. "Should we go upstairs now?"

"I think you should see the library first."

"There is a library?!"

"Follow me" he said nodding his head and laughing softly at my excitement, leading the way to a large room in which the walls were covered with completely filled wooden bookcases from ground to ceiling. At the center a very cozy-looking couch and two armchairs created a perfect place to read. I had always dreamed about a house with a library, and there it was.

"We also have a great study back there" he told me.

We walked in a spacious room with two desks opposite to each other.

"I like working close to you." He said with a smile. "That's how everything started, right?" That was absolutely true.

"Yes." I said as memories washed through me "Yes, it was."

I was still so upset about him and Lauren, but that tour around the house was bringing down all my defenses. I couldn't deny myself the happiness that home promised, as short as it might be.

"Shall we go upstairs now?" he asked.

"Yeah."

The second floor had a cozy TV room, five bedrooms and a master suite. The bedrooms were fully furnished, with bedspreads and all. The master suite, though, was naked.

"It's our bedroom. I thought we should pick every single piece for it together." He said hugging me from behind, sneaking his arms around my waist.

"I like that." I said, letting the double meaning clear.

"I really missed you these last days." He said softly, burying his face into my neck.

I closed my eyes, wishing that that could be true, wishing that I could believe him.

We stood there together for a moment and then he asked if I wanted to see the attic.

"There's an attic too?! God, this is much better than a castle in the Black Forest!" I exclaimed recalling our aliases at the German Embassy party and their fairytale residence.

"Well, I was hoping you would think so" he chuckled "but the attic is only a dusty empty place, at least for now."

He guided me up the narrow stairs to a large room which seemed abandoned.

"Maybe we could have a game room here. We could get a pool table, you know." I suggested.

"A pool – a pool table?" he stammered.

"Bad idea?" I asked, knowing that it wasn't.

"No! That's a great idea." He smiled broadly and somewhat surprised.

"So that's what we'll do." I smiled back.

"Well, the only problem with having a pool table in the attic is that we might have a hard time kicking Fred out of here." he pointed.

"Oh, that's not such a problem! I like Fred. We had ice cream together last Sunday, did he tell you?"

"Yes he did. And he seemed quite pleased about it." he made a face.

"What?" I asked.

"Are you planning on swapping fiancés?" he snapped playfully.

"No." I said – 'though I probably should' – I wanted to add – 'since mine has another fiancée.'

"Good. Let's go back downstairs, now. I have one last thing to show you." he said grinning.

"Okay."

He took me to the foyer and led me towards the glass door, covering my eyes with his hands.

"Stay here for a second and keep your eyes closed" he instructed.

I heard him opening the door widely and felt him back by my side.

"Now you can open your eyes." He finally said.

As soon as I opened them I gasped. I loved that house already, it was impossible not to, everything about it was perfect, but nothing could have prepared me for the rose garden. I crossed the doorway, went down the few steps leading to it and simply stood there, staring at that place. It was like a dream. The ground was paved with cobblestones, which also demarcated the flower beds, of which there were many, all of them with rosebushes, all of them already with buds, some with fully bloomed roses of many different colors. It was just beautiful. And when he touched my hand lightly, smiled to me like he used to when I was his Sydney and told me that he had made that garden for me, I felt my love for him spread through my body in waves of warmness and happiness and sadness and pain. That was the most intense moment of my life. It was like having my whole lifetime concentrated in one single moment of truth, of full conscience. And what I saw then, what I learned in that moment of epiphany was that my love for Vaughn was the innermost principle, the innermost strength of my being; it defined who I was, it guided every single thing I had ever done and would ever do; it was who I was; and it would always be, through the smiles and the tears, the joy and the sorrow, the pain and the happiness it brought me. There was no fighting that; I couldn't and I didn't want to fight that.