1 Title: Rainy Days and Mondays Chapter 5

Author: Karin (Bailsgal)

Email: celtic_7@hotmail.com

Feedback: Live for it!

Summary: When Vaughn can't handle seeing Syd with Noah any longer, he accepts a posting to the American Embassy in London. However a bad mission and unsaid things lead Sydney to his door.

Disclaimer: None of this is mine. All Alias characters belong to the very talented mind of JJ Abrams. Emma Brody and Doug Roach and the rest of the London Embassy crew belong to the cancelled Fox show The American Embassy, produced by Jersey Television., Michelle Fox and Danny DeVito

Distribution: Whoever wants it just ask and it's yours.

Rating : PG to start.

Classification: Angst/Adventure and Romance…what could a person ask for?

Author's Note: I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my dear friend and beta girl extraordinar Anne-Marie! I'd be lost without her help and support. And to all the wonderful people who took the time to send me feedback…. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Sydney woke up with a start as a sudden jolt of pain gripped her hard. As she fought to breathe through the pain, all she could see was a bright, white light. Evidently the painkillers wore off as suddenly as they knocked her out because the pain woke her from a dead sleep. She looked around the room trying to remember where she was. Then it came to her. She was in London and she was finally in Michael Vaughn's bed, albeit, there wasn't much she could do about that at the moment.

"Can I get Louise?" a soft female voice asked from the shadows of the room. Louise, the other nurse on Robert's staff had returned to relieve Katie several hours earlier and was working on charts in another room in the flat. Damn she'd been out again for awhile.

"No," she groaned, taking another deep breath before turning her head. In the corner sat the blonde she'd met upon arriving at Vaughn's door.

How many days ago was that?

"Are you sure?" Emma asked as she moved toward the bed.

"No the pain's good. It lets me know I'm still alive," Sydney said as she winced.

What was here name again? Shit why can't I remember it? What did Vaughn call her? And wait… where was Vaughn?

Sydney wondered all these things in the brief moment of silence that arose between the two women. Sydney also made a quick search of the room for Vaughn.

"He's having a shower," Emma said slipping into the chair that Vaughn had been sitting in earlier. If she listened carefully, Sydney could hear a shower running in Vaughn's ensuite bathroom.

"I'm Emma," the blonde offered with a slight smile.

Emma! That's it!

Sydney couldn't help but notice how tired she looked as she studied her.

"Sydney," she returned.

"Oh I know. Michael's told me all about you," Emma said and leaned back in the chair. She looked Sydney over bluntly and with an appraising eye.

"You have me at a disadvantage then," Sydney replied, returning Emma's stare. Obviously this woman was checking her out, and who could blame her? Wasn't she doing exactly the same thing? Checking out the competition was a national past time among women.

"I know," she smiled sweetly. Sydney wasn't sure that she liked this woman at all.

"You and Vaughn are close I take it," Sydney said in her best casual voice.

"Michael means a lot to me. He's like the brother I always wanted," Emma smiled. She tucked a stray blonde hair behind her ear before she looked up at Sydney, a warning clearly in her voice and her eyes.

"He means a lot to me too," Sydney assured her.

Best make friends with the enemy she thought mildly.

"I know. You mumbled something about that as you passed out in my arms."

She's smirking at me!

"I did?" Sydney blushed slightly at the thought. God only knew what she had said! That was priceless! She could just imagine the world's greatest spy whispering her secrets to any stranger that would listen. Her father would be thrilled.

"Yes. I think you used the L-word," Emma smirked again. She was enjoying watching this confident woman blush.

"I can't believe…." Sydney shook her head.

Believe what? That you would just blurt it out in a moment of delusion? Stranger things have happened.

"I assume, with an admission like that, that you aren't planning on hurting him again?" Emma raised her eyebrow in question.

"I've never hurt him! And if I did, I never did it on purpose. Vaughn is the most important person in my life…I …I could never… would never want to hurt him," Sydney blustered. She really didn't like this line of questioning.

"That's what I thought," Emma said nodding her head. She noticed that the shower had stopped so she rose from the chair to make her hasty exit.

"Louise said you could have some clear broth. I'll get it for you," Emma said walking to the door.

"You know why he left don't you?" Sydney demanded.

"Yes, but I think its up to Michael to tell you about it. Can I get you that soup now?" Emma smiled at her and Sydney knew the inquisition was over. She had passed and the two women would be friends.

"Thanks," she answered as Emma disappeared out the door and down the stairs.

Alone and conscious, Sydney looked around the room for the first time. The classic lines and bleached wood of the masculine furniture and the dark navy linens definitely screamed Vaughn. On the desk a series of pictures stood sentry. There was one of him, Weiss and another man on a ski slope somewhere and another one showed Vaughn and an older blonde haired woman whom Sydney thought might be his mother. Another picture on his bookcase showed Vaughn with a group of young kids in hockey equipment and the other table held a photo of him holding a redhead in his arms. Standing next to Vaughn and this mystery woman were Emma and an attractive man that could only be Doug. He looked like a spy.

So this is Jill

Sydney studied the picture closely. Jill was beautiful in a Nicole Kidman kind of way- tall, elegant, and stunningly beautiful. Sydney also remembered that she was a lawyer so she obviously had brains too. Sydney hated her and to make matters worse, she looked at him in such a way as to leave no doubt in Sydney's mind that she had loved him. What could have broken them up? They looked like they belonged together.

Rolling onto her good side, Sydney studied his bookcase. She could tell a lot about a man form the books he read. Take Will for example. He was obviously a reporter because his shelves were lined in true crime books and grammar guides.

Sydney was not at all surprised to see classics of English and French literature sitting on Vaughn's bookcase and she could tell by the wear and tear on each that he'd read them over and over. What did surprise her was his collection of Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum books. Somehow she hadn't pictured him reading fiction based on the adventures of Jack Ryan and the CIA! She would have thought he's had enough of that.

A lower shelf housed a collection of CD's. It was quite a diverse assortment that included Sting, Cold Play, Radiohead, The Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, U2, REM, The Police, Bauhaus, and the Cult. Sydney smiled, pleasantly surprised by his eclectic tastes. The thing that really caught her eye though was a stack of CD's that sat off on their own. She cocked her head to the side so she could read the titles. Again she smiled. Vaughn was just full of surprises! Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James and Diana Krall, a veritable cornucopia of legends. While the other music was an interesting insight into Vaughn's personality, this little collection of classics collection seemed more him than The Cult or U2. She couldn't get over the number of Sinatra CD's he owned! She didn't even know there were that many in release!

Hearing the bathroom door open, Sydney rolled over to see a shirtless Vaughn stepping into a pair of faded jeans. His hair was wet and standing up on end as he rubbed it carelessly with a towel, the fly of the jeans was still open, revealing just a hint of boxer shorts. She'd never seen him look sexier. Who could have guessed that underneath all those suits and button down shirts a killer body was just waiting to be discovered? All Sydney could think was how much she wanted to run her hands down his chest and find out what was in those boxers…

"Hey you're awake again," he said pulling the towel away to smile at her and startling her out of her less than pure thoughts.

"What? Oh yeah… just umm, sitting here… quietly," she choked out before recovering enough to offer him a smile. "Have you been in the shower all this time?"

"No, work and Emma's insistence that I eat something before I died from starvation have kept me busy most of the day. I swear, sometimes she's worse than my mother," he laughed, hanging the towel on the doorknob and pulling on a faded chambray work shirt.

"Well if you took better care of yourself Vaughn, you wouldn't need someone to do it for you," Sydney answered. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she watched his fingers do up the button on the shirt. He had such nice, hands…

"You okay? Should I get Louise?" he asked hearing her gulp with what he thought was pain.

"No, no I'm fine. I need to be clear headed."

I need to be able to think when I'm near you!

"Don't worry about anything, Syd. Weiss and I are already working on an extraction plan when you feel up to it," he told her as he moved to his dresser for a pair of white socks.

Looking down, Sydney noticed his bare feet. This was another first in her relationship with Michael Vaughn. He had nice feet, the type she'd like rubbing up against her naked legs.

What the hell is wrong with me!

As if he's read her mind, Vaughn tossed the socks back in the drawer and closed it.

"So you're planning on get rid of me already?" she asked, trying to erase from her head the pictures of Vaughn's feet rubbing up and down her bare legs.

"No, when you're ready. Robert doesn't think you'll be up to travelling for at least another week yet, and that's pushing it. We've got plenty of time. Try not to think about it," he said. He was leaning against the side of his dresser smiling that killer, dimpled smile that made her knees quiver.

"Does my dad know what's happened?" she asked. She couldn't remember if he'd mentioned this already but she couldn't think of anything else to say at the moment to keep him in the room.

"Yeah, Robert has been keeping him informed. I assume he'll let Sloane and Noah know you're hiding out somewhere until things settle down," Vaughn said. It bothered him how easily he had said both men's names, like they weren't the bane of his existence.

"I really don't think Noah will care where I am," she said looking at the picture of Vaughn and Jill. "We split up again."

"Oh. I…I didn't know that," he said. The news was pretty stunning to him and obviously still upsetting to her. She looked as if she were about to cry.

"It's okay. It was almost 6 months ago now."

"I left almost 6 months ago," he said quietly, looking at her in shock.

"We broke up the day before you told me you were leaving. He said he couldn't do it anymore, the spying and the lying. He wanted us to disappear together but I couldn't do that. Taking down SD-6 is too important," Sydney sighed. He had offered her a chance to be free and she hadn't taken it. " I did think about it though, I mean I really thought about it."

In the end, leaving Vaughn and her father in a lurch had been something that she just couldn't do. Taking down SD-6 was important but not as important as maintaining her relationship with her father and Vaughn. Letting them down wasn't an option.

"Why didn't you tell me?" his voice shook as he asked her.

"You didn't give me a chance. When you told me part of the reason you were leaving was because I had Noah…I couldn't tell you. You said you needed to find yourself… I didn't want to stop you," Sydney said. She had tears in her eyes when she looked at him again.

"Oh my God," he said closing his eyes. None of this had been necessary. None of it! They had wasted all this time…

"Michael! Mike!" Doug's voice shattered the moment as he bellowed through the flat.

"For god sake's Doug! You'll wake the dead," Emma said and grinned as she stepped into the hall to meet her boyfriend.

"Mike!" he shouted again, racing up the stairs with Emma on his heels.

"Roach you're scaring me. What's going on?" Emma cried chasing him.

"Doug what the hell…" Vaughn started but seeing Doug's face, he stopped cold.

"They just bombed the Embassy."

"What? Who? Was anyone hurt?" Emma cried, worried about their friends and co-workers.

"No it was a distraction. Whoever it was hoped that we'd pull the agents assigned to protect Syd away, to help at the Embassy. Peirson and I realised what was happening and we went looking for the agents involved. They were sitting in a black sedan about a 100 meters from your front door," Doug said looking up to see his best friend and boss' face turn from a deathly pallor to an ugly shade of red.

"Where are they now?" Vaughn asked in a tight voice.

"Taken care off," Doug replied.

Vaughn was livid! Nobody ever went after the CIA in "their own house", never! K-Directorate or whoever this was had just made a huge mistake by attacking the Embassy. Vaughn was taking this personally. This was an Embassy, a sovereign US territory and attacking it was like attacking the US itself!

"We're moving," Vaughn's voice was ice cold as he shifted into his game face.

"Emma, pack up a week's worth of clothes for you and Syd, okay?" he asked turning to look at the blonde's terrified face. He gave her a quick hug and turned her in the direction of her room.

"Doug, help Louise pack up everything we're going to need," he said to his friend before turning back to his own room.

"Vaughn?" Sydney called. The man that was now in front of her startled her. He was all business. Vaughn moved quickly to his closet and began shoving clothes aside. In the back of the closet a safe was hidden. Without pause, he punched in a code and the door unlocked, breaking its airtight seal.

"Syd we have to leave and we have to leave now," he said, looking over his shoulder at her and then down to the floor of his closet. It was as if he was searching for something. He located an oversized, black leather carry- on and started shoving things into it.

"Mike, Louise says it's all basically packed and that she'll have the bags ready to go in ten minutes," Doug said as he came into the room.

"Good. Here," he said, tossing Doug a gun and a clip, followed by a cell phone.

"Wait a minute, we had these cleaned for your mission," Doug whispered urgently to Vaughn.

"Right now, this is more important. The mission can wait," Vaughn whispered back.

"We've been working on this for months, years! What are you doing?" Doug raised his voice.

"Time frame isn't right," Vaughn's glare ordered him to keep his voice down.

"You're supposed to be leaving in a week, Michael," Doug whispered back, watching as Vaughn flipped through the vault's contents.

"You'll need clothes…and a passport," Vaughn said dropping what looked like passports into his bag.

"That's it?" Doug hissed.

"That's all we have time for. You should up our arsenal too," Vaughn continued, ignoring Doug

"I'll swing home once we get you guys settled. You have a fake passport for Em?" he asked dropping the subject of the mission. He knew he couldn't push Vaughn once his mind was set on something. God the man was stubborn!

"Right here," Vaughn said patting the bag before he pulled a second cell phone from the vault and dropped it into the bag. He shot Doug a reproving look. "I told you when we moved in together, I'd take care of her if anything like this every happened. Emma is like family to me, don't ever doubt that."

Sydney was mesmerized by his actions. This was not the man who used to be her handler! At some point since he left LA, he'd become this calm, confident take-charge type of guy. Sydney hadn't thought it was possible for him to be any sexier than he'd been when he stepped out of his bathroom but she's been wrong. He just had.

"I know, I'm sorry." Doug apologized for doubting Vaughn.

"Forget it. Any idea where we can take her?" Vaughn asked as he shoved clothes into another bag.

"Not yet. They've been casing all the safe houses we have in London and the outlying areas," Doug said watching Sydney out of the corner of his eye. It was something that did not go unnoticed by Vaughn.

"I'm sorry. Syd, this is Agent Doug Roach. Doug, Agent Sydney Bristow. A word of warning Syd, don't trust anything that comes out of his mouth," Vaughn cracked a smile that made Doug do the same.

"Nice to meet you Sydney. I just wish it were under better circumstances," he said looking out in the hall for Emma. He wished his girlfriend could pack faster.

"Why don't you go help her," Vaughn said, noticing that Doug was looking for Emma.

"Yeah, I think I will. She'll be bringing her bathtub with her if we aren't careful." Doug said as he moved down the hall in search of Emma.

"This isn't good is it?" Sydney asked as Vaughn continued to shove things into bags.

"No. They're trying to smoke us out. We need to move you to some place safe but from the sounds of things, they know where all our safe house locations are. I'll have to call Langley when we get back, " he said, thinking out loud. Being one of the Station bosses wasn't as much fun as he'd thought it would be. He was forever worrying about his personnel; the safety of the embassy staff, terrorists, and other spies… the list was endless.

"So where do we go?" she asked.

"Gary's," Emma said as she marched into Vaughn's room.

"Gary's! He's away until next weekend and there's nothing to trace back to us. It'll work perfectly. Em, you're brilliant! " Vaughn smiled proudly at her.

"We'll hide there until we can figure out our next move," she said moving to his bookcase and shoving a stack of Sinatra CD's into a black knapsack.

"What are you…"

"We maybe on the run, but we never leave Frankie behind on a road trip, do we Michael?" Emma interrupted. She winked at Vaughn before she marched out of the room again.

"Is this some kind of Sinatra cult I've fallen into?" Sydney laughed, grateful for a slight break in the tension.

"Sort of…I guess. Em and I have shared many a bonding moment over him since we moved in together," Vaughn grinned as he watched her leave the room.

"You going to explain that to me?" Syd watched as he bent over to pull his shaving kit out of his bottom drawer. She hadn't meant to admire his butt but she couldn't really help it, it was just so tempting.

"Maybe someday," Vaughn said without tuning around.

"You ready?" Doug said appearing in the doorway again, this time with Emma at his side. He was trying to juggle her leather knapsack and carry on while holding onto his keys and cell phone.

"Just about. Donovan!" Vaughn said suddenly remembering the dog.

"I'll get Donovan," Doug said slinging one of Emma's bags over his shoulder before moving off to find him.

"Don't forget his leash, bowls and doggie bed!" Emma yelled her reminder. There was no way that dog would suffer as long as she was around! She spoiled him rotten.

"Christ Em! We're on the run, not moving!" Doug exclaimed exasperated with her. She just didn't get the whole 'on the run' thing. She'd packed Sinatra for Pete's sake!

"Syd, moving you is going to be difficult and its gonna hurt. I'm going to get Louise to give you something to put you out. You won't feel anything if you get jostled and you'll be a hell of a lot more comfortable," Vaughn said moving to sit on the side of the bed. He was trying very hard to ignore the floorshow that was Emma and Doug.

"Well if we're takin' this on the road, you better give me something," she smiled nervously at him. The old Vaughn would have let her make the call but this new and improved version was all about command! She kind of liked it. It made her feel very… safe.

"I'll be here when you wake up, I promise," he said softly, brushing his fingers over her cheek and pushing her hair behind her ear.

"I don't doubt it," she said and leaned into it his touch. She closed her eyes, welcoming the feel of his fingers against her skin.

"I'll get Louise," Emma said quietly as she excused herself, giving them a moment alone.

TBC