Title: The Game of the Century

Author: mojoco

Rating: R

Timeline: Post ATY/ AU

Summary: Vaughn left the CIA in disgrace. Sydney made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Irina Derevko has a couple of new employees who've always liked to make their own rules. It's a dangerous game. The only question is, who's playing who?

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, they belong to JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions.

Distribution: Cover Me; any other, please let me know.

Author's note: Please review, I love to get feedback!

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Chapter One: The Rules

The woman paused at the doorway, grimacing at the sound of the moans she heard coming from the other side. Lovely. She hoped they weren't too far along, but then again, if they were, they'd at least have the decency to cover themselves and act embarrassed. If they were still clothed, he probably wouldn't even bother to roll off of her.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find you like this," she called as she opened the door. Her little warning. Of course they hadn't locked the door. It was one of her rules. No locked doors unless she commanded it.

The man and the woman on the other side of the door were still dressed, him draped across her on the couch, and though his lips froze at her neck when the woman entered the room, as predicted, he didn't hurry away from the woman beneath him like a startled teenager. Instead, he rolled off of her rather lazily, gathering her onto his lap before so much as sparing a glance on the new woman in the room.

"Hello, Mother," the woman on his lap said, though she, too, barely bothered to glance up from the man she rested on. Her mother could hardly say she blamed her. The man was certainly a sight to behold. She supposed that before he'd met her daughter, he'd been a straight arrow, a play-by-the-rules kind of guy, with all sorts of deluded notions of honor and country. It was amazing how the promise of true love and a little sex could turn a man around. It really made her wonder if he'd had a darker side before, or if they'd made him the way he was. She and her daughter.

Her daughter had certainly had a darker side. She'd been far easier to convert than her mother had ever expected. Of course, she'd been a regular pain in the ass at first. Until Irina had thought to ask her what she'd wanted more than anything in the world.

Sydney had thought she'd evaded the question. "Vaughn-- do you know where he is?" she'd asked in response. "Is he okay?"

And Irina had smiled. So that was her daughter's weakness. The exquisite Agent Michael Vaughn. Irina had been watching the two of them closely for awhile now, and she'd seen the way her daughter had leaned on that man, the way Agent Vaughn had seemed willing to do virtually anything for her daughter. But she'd seen more. Potential. She'd seen the way Agent Vaughn had reacted when he'd learned who had fired the bullet that had killed his father. Or rather, the way he hadn't reacted. He'd been so concerned with making sure his precious Sydney was all right. Always the strong one. Always her shoulder to cry on.

Well, Irina knew probably better than anyone that there was no such thing as always. Nothing lasted forever. Someday, something would happen to make Agent Vaughn crack-- no, shatter. Her daughter had already cracked him. Irina just hadn't expected his undoing to come sooner rather than later.

"I don't know where your Agent Vaughn is," Irina had told her daughter calmly that day in Taipei. "Listen, darling. I'm going to let you go for now."

"Go?" Confusion had clouded Sydney's dark eyes. Eyes so like her mother's.

"Oh, we'll be meeting again," Irina had assured her. "And think about my offer, Sydney. I meant it, and I can provide it. Anything you want."

After that, things had gone like clockwork, and the best part was, Irina had had deliciously little to do with it. Agent Vaughn had not died in that liquid-filled hallway in Taipei, but for awhile, he must have wished he had. Asked to leave the CIA. Disgraced. Where did a man go when everything he'd worked for in life had been taken from him?

Where did a woman go, when the man who'd been helping her achieve everything she'd so desperately wanted had been torn from her side?

Well, there was one person many women would run to in such a situation, and Sydney Bristow had been no exception.

She'd called her mother.