Title: Failing You

Author: Mango19

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Rating: G

A/N: Thank you so much for all the feedback. Keep it up! I hope you enjoy this, there should be one more chapter after this one.

Each step toward Sloane's office seemed like an awakening. Every step was that much closer to her freedom. Closer to her future. Whatever it might hold. She seemed to be stepping in slow motion, almost as if in water. She shuddered at the memory that lay too close to the surface. Reaching for the glass door that separated her and her fate, she didn't recognize her own hand. This all seemed too foreign. The polish on her nails seemed the wrong shade of nude and her cuticles too groomed. She froze with her hand on the door handle.

"Vaughn?" She asked, almost in a panic.

"I'm here." He answered.

She couldn't speak. Only watch Sloane work faithfully at his desk. She tried to imagine what he was working on. Plans to steal more weapons? Plans to kill more civilians? But all the while she couldn't help wondering if she could end his life as quickly as he ended Danny's. Emily's. How many innocent people? Could she sink herself to his level?

"Syd, you can do this. I know you can." And she believed him. She would not fail him again.

Adding some pressure to her arm the door swung open easily and she stood at the entrance. Sloane glanced up and did a double take at Sydney standing there. "Sydney?" She must have been a sight. Standing there dressed in her power suit and tears welling in her eyes.

"I have the debriefing." She said, just barley audible.

"Just leave it there." Sloane ordered pointing to the corner of his desk. He returned to his work just as easily as he had left it.

"No, I think you should look at it now." Sydney said shoving the paper over the work that Sloane was so busily working on. She would not fail him again.

At first glance he was about to tell Sydney who it was exactly who was boss but with one glance of her debriefing he stopped. He stared at the heading for a few seconds before his face paled. "Sydney Bristow - My mission as a CIA double agent."

His head slowly raised to meet her eyes. "Sydney." Was all he could say. In his eyes was betrayal but more than that was fear. Something Sydney was almost certain she had never seen in his eyes before. She could hear a commotion even through the sound proof walls of Sloane's office, the sound of the office being invaded.

She reached into the waist of her skirt and drew the gun pointing it at Sloane's head. She clicked the aftey off and looked through the target. Asking her now, she could never tell you why she hesitated. But she did. "Vaughn, I need you." A look of confusion teased at Sloane's face before the knowledge kicked in. The comm.

"I'm here, Syd." She would not fail him again.

"I don't think I can do this …" She said, trying to steady her gun she looked at the floor trying to gather her nerves.

"Syd, you can. I know you can. Do it for Danny, Emily, Will …"

At that moment the comm. unit silenced. When Sydney looked up at Sloane he held the pen that she had used so many times to allow herself a few moments with her father or a few stolen moments with Vaughn. Sydney let a smile play at her lips at the thought of her own weapon being used against her. That faithful pen was now used against her. And her comm. unit was gone, as was her guardian angel, and her strength.

When Sloane raised the gun and pointed it at Sydney he smiled "Well, Sydney, it seems we have ourselves a predicament here."

When the gun went off both were, for a split second, shocked at the intensity of the noise in the sound proof room. But only one was able to hear the body hit the floor …