Sydney yelped. Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened as she backed away from the bed. His lips were still warm!

She watched in utter disbelief as his eyelids flickered. It was like watching Sleeping Beauty, only their roles had been reversed. "Syd?" He murmured weakly.

Vaughn felt as if he were drifting on a cloud. His body was weightless and there was some kind of ethereal being dressed all in white floating by his side. Was he in Heaven? It had to be if Sydney was here, looking like the loveliest angel he had ever seen.

He saw her lips moving. She was saying something to him, but he couldn't quite make out the words. He struggled to rid himself of the haze that was shrouding him and that was when he heard her voice, sweet and clear as a bell. She was telling him she loved him. He wanted to reach out to her at that moment, but his brain felt fuzzy and it wasn't sending the proper messages to his limbs in order to get them to move.

But it didn't matter. The angel was coming towards him. She opened her mouth to speak and he expected to hear the most beautiful sound his ears had ever heard.

"Oh, my God!" Sydney gasped, rushing back to his side. "Vaughn?" She cried out, her eyes filling with tears.

And then she called him "Vaughn" and he knew this wasn't Heaven. He groaned in disappointment.

A moan escaped his lips and Sydney looked alarmed. "What's the matter? Are you in pain?" She said frantically.

He stared up at her with those beautiful green eyes.  "You…called…me…Michael…just…a…minute…ago." He spoke with great effort. "Now…back…to…Vaughn."

Sydney flushed. "You weren't supposed to hear that." She said embarrassedly.

"Does a guy…have to be…dead…for you…to call him…by his first…name?" Was Vaughn actually teasing her?

"No!" She burst out and then blushed again. "No, I'm sorry, you're right. It's just that I thought you were…" She couldn't bring herself to say the dreaded word.

"…dead." Vaughn supplied for her.

"Right." Sydney said, subdued.

"So you only make…heartfelt confessions…to dead men?" He asked, that teasing note in his voice again. "Something about…dead men tell no tales and all that?"

"Michael, please!" She wailed self-consciously, not realizing until a few seconds later that she'd done it again. The unfamiliar name felt strange coming from her lips and she frowned to herself.

Vaughn noticed her look and wondered what she was thinking. "Something…wrong?"

Sydney gave him a distressed look as she sat down on the bed. "I just realized that I don't know what to call you."

"I don't know what you mean." He shook his head quizzically. He struggled to sit up and she helped prop him up against the headboard.

"Well, is Michael the name you go by? What does your mother call you? What do your friends call you?" She gave a helpless shrug. "That's something I should know and I'm embarrassed that I don't."

"Well, it's not as if the subject's ever come up before, Syd." Vaughn chuckled, his voice a little stronger now. "I'm not going to hold it against you that you don't know all my nicknames."

"So you have a nickname." She prompted.

He hesitated a moment before speaking. "My dad used to call me Mikey." He finally admitted, turning red when he saw the grin spreading on Sydney's face. "Hey, don't laugh! Are you forgetting I was a little kid when he died?"

"I'm not laughing!" Sydney protested even as a giggle escaped her lips. "I'm smiling because it's cute. I can see you as a Mikey."

Vaughn rolled his eyes at her. Guys didn't like to be thought of as cute. Manly and masculine were fine, but cute was just too…well, cute. "My mother calls me Michael. Sometimes it's Michel if we're speaking in French." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Any comment from the peanut gallery?"

"No." She replied solemnly, a grin teasing at the corners of her mouth.

"Weiss calls me Mike." Vaughn went on. "Or crazy when he's particularly pissed at me." He thought back to the last time he had seen his partner. It had been in the conference room at CIA Headquarters and the tension between them could have been cut with a knife.

"Hey, what are you thinking about?" Sydney asked softly as Vaughn suddenly went silent for a few moments.

"Eric and I--we sort of had a disagreement before I left." He divulged reluctantly. "We didn't leave things on a very high note between us."

"I see." Sydney gave him a perceptive look. "It didn't have to do with me, did it?"

Vaughn's mouth quirked to one side. "I had confided in him what I thought you were going to do in Taipei and he ratted me out to Devlin and Haladki."

"I'm sorry." She said soberly, feeling inadequate.

"I trusted him and he let me down." He gave her a brief grimace. "One of the last things he said to me was 'Trust is a tricky thing.'" He let out a heavy sigh.

"You can't really blame him, Michael." Sydney said quietly. "If he knows something, he's bound by his obligations as a government agent to tell what he knows. It's not his job to cover for me and I'm sorry if I made it yours."

Vaughn took Sydney's hand and grasped it between his own. "You didn't make me do anything I didn't want to do, Sydney. I told you that I didn't want to be the same kind of company man my father was. If you're doing something I believe in, then it doesn't matter to me if they don't."

She gave him a grateful look. "In case I didn't tell you before, I'm glad you're here with me." She colored slightly. "I mean, I'm not glad we're in this situation, but I am glad that I'm not alone."

"Speaking of which, are you going to tell me what exactly is going on here?" Vaughn asked her. "Where are we?"

Sydney hesitated. She had just gotten him back and she didn't want to spoil everything by talking about her mother, a topic that was sure to rile him up. After his trying ordeal, he needed a little time to recover. There would be time enough later for them to discuss their situation. Luckily, they would have all the time in the world.

"I'll tell you everything that's happened, but not yet." Sydney said slowly. "First we have to settle the whole name debate."

Vaughn gave her a strange look. "Syd, if there's something you're afraid to tell me--"

"No, I'm not afraid!" She said hastily. "I could never be afraid to tell you anything." Her face softened. "I just don't want to let the real world intrude upon us just yet. I thought I had lost you forever. Sue me if I want to keep you to myself just a little while longer." She gave him a shy little smile that melted his heart.

Vaughn smiled at her. "How can I resist that?" He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. "What were we talking about again?" He asked, planting another light kiss on her knuckle. He was certainly not being shy about his intentions and it was definitely making an impression on her.

"What I should call you." Sydney breathed heavily as the nerves in her hand started tingling.

"You…(kiss)…can…(kiss)…call…(kiss)…me…(kiss)…whatever…(kiss)…you…(kiss)…like (nibble!)." Vaughn looked up at her from beneath his lashes to see what kind of reaction he was getting from Sydney and was rather pleased when he saw the blissed-out expression on her face. "Except for Mickey. I hate Mickey." He added with a shudder.

Sydney tried to stifle a giggle. "Who calls you Mickey?"

"My Aunt Trish."

"And the reason being?"

Vaughn gave her a discomfited look. "Syd, don't make me tell the story." He begged.

"There's a story?" She squealed delightedly. "Oh, Michael, now I have to hear it!"

Vaughn let out an unenthusiastic groan. "Well, if I tell you, it goes no further than this room." He said warningly. "My whole family knows the story because it gets passed around every time there's a family reunion, but you are the only person outside of my family who will know what I am about to tell you."

"I'm honored." Sydney grinned facetiously.

"Okay." Vaughn took a deep breath. He couldn't believe he was about to tell her one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. "I was five years old and one day, my parents told me they were going to take me to Disneyland after school let out for the summer. Their first mistake was telling me a month in advance. From that day forward, I would go around the house asking my parents if today was the day we were going to see Mickey Mouse. I would tell strangers on the street or at the supermarket that I was going to see Mickey Mouse." He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "To put it plainly, I was obsessed." The grin on Sydney's face broadened.

"Well, my Aunt Trish had come to visit a few days before the big trip to Disneyland, so she was going to go with us. In the car driving over, I kept up my constant chatter about going to meet Mickey Mouse and after a whole month of that, my folks were probably going crazy."

"I know it would drive me crazy." Sydney agreed.

"We got there before the park opened and my dad bought the tickets and when we went through the turnstiles, who do you think is standing about 15 feet away from us?" Vaughn asked her rhetorically. "There was Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and one of the chipmunks, Chip or Dale, I don't know which." He shrugged.

"I think the way you can tell them apart is that one of them has a red nose and one has a black nose." Sydney interjected with a straight face.

Vaughn threw her a blank look. "I don't remember what color nose he had." He deadpanned and Sydney hid her smile by covering her mouth with her hand.

"Anyway, my mother pointed them out to me and she started leading me over to them while my dad was taking out his camera to capture this golden moment for posterity." Vaughn said exaggeratedly. "It was supposed to be this Great Family Moment, but when I got face to face with Mickey Mouse, I froze." He gave her a pained look.

"Oh, no!" Sydney dissolved into peals of laughter. "Michael, how could you?"

"I couldn't help it." He shook his head. "I mean, I was just this dumb little kid and all of a sudden, I had this very large creature towering over me and he was holding out his arms as if he was going to grab me and I freaked." Vaughn was turning a becoming shade of pink. "I turned around and I ran crying straight into my mother's arms."

"Michael, I think…he was…only going…to hug you!" Sydney was gasping for breath as she was laughing so hard at the mental images of a sobbing Mikey Vaughn being afraid of Mickey Mouse, for crying out loud!

"I know that now, but I didn't know it at the time." His face broke out into a bashful grin. He knew it was a funny story even if it was at his expense. "I made them take me out of the park and I said I wanted to go home."

"You barely made it past the front gate and you wanted to go home?" Sydney pretended to be aghast. "Oh, if I was your mother--do you know how much it costs to go to Disneyland these days?"

"Well, it wasn't so much back then." He replied. "Luckily, they thought to get our hands stamped before we went out. My folks took me back to the car and they calmed me down enough to where I would go back in only if we completely avoided the area where Mickey was hanging out."

Sydney giggled. "I think you are the only person in the world who is afraid of Mickey Mouse." She said teasingly.

"Hey, let's get one thing straight." Vaughn held up his hand. "I'm not afraid of him anymore."

"Well, I think your future children will thank you for that." Sydney quipped. "I'd hate to think of them being deprived out of a trip to Disneyland just because their father is afraid of a happy, smiling mouse who only has eight fingers."

Vaughn pretended to be indignant. "Sydney, when we take our kids, I will pr--" Their eyes suddenly met at his Freudian slip and a flush crept into both of their faces. "Uh, um…what I meant to say…is that if we ever went to Disneyland, I would prove it to you…that I'm no longer…afraid." He finished lamely, almost wishing he were submerged underwater again than to feel this kind of mortification for his slip-up.

"I got it." Sydney said softly, seeing no reason to embarrass him any further. "So that's where the Mickey name comes in, right?"

He nodded, his face still feeling warm. "My Aunt Trish still calls me that to this day and even though I've asked her not to do it, she doesn't pay any attention to me."

"Oh, my poor Mickey!" Sydney crooned and he pretended to threaten her with a bed pillow while she ducked. "I'm sorry." She looked contrite. "You will never hear that name come out of my mouth in reference to you." Sydney said solemnly.

"And don't you dare tell Weiss!" Vaughn warned her. "If he ever found out, my life would become a never-ending hell of covert taunts and sly references to a certain mouse who shall forever remain nameless from this moment on." He said, mock threateningly.

"I promise you my lips are sealed." Sydney caught Vaughn looking at her lips at precisely that moment and the tension between them ratcheted up a few notches. "You know, I think that's the first time you've ever told me a story from your childhood." She looked thoughtful, hoping to diffuse the situation a bit.

"Yeah, I think it might be." Vaughn agreed.

Sydney gave him an embarrassed look. "We talk about me entirely too much, don't we?"

"Syd, don't be embarrassed." Vaughn said tenderly. "You happen to be one of my favorite topics of conversation."

He started rambling without thinking. "In fact, sometimes, you're the only thing--" He suddenly stopped, his face turning red. Why am I suddenly shooting off my mouth like some blithering idiot every five seconds? Had Khasinau laced that water he'd been floating in for those long terrifying minutes with some kind of truth serum? Whether or not that was the case, he was certainly acting as if he'd been given a strong dose of the stuff because he was being entirely too forthcoming in regard to his feelings for Sydney. Vaughn was usually so careful to keep his emotions in check whenever they were together, precisely so that they didn't have these humiliatingly awkward moments, but for some reason, their present circumstances were playing havoc with his self-control.

"I'm the only thing what?" She prodded him, eager to hear what he had to say.

The look on Sydney's beautiful face captivated him and his desire to play it cool suddenly went out the window. "Sometimes you're the only thing I feel like talking about." Vaughn finished softly. She felt a ridiculous sense of pleasure bubble up inside her.

An uncomfortable silence fell between them. There was so much to say about so many things, but both of them were hesitant about bringing up the subject that was foremost in their heads and in their hearts.

Vaughn decided to bite the bullet. "Sydney, I don't know if I was dreaming before, but I think I heard you talking to me." He began tentatively. "I heard your voice and I think that was what brought me back."

Sydney shot him a nervous glance. "What was I saying to you?"

"I heard you say you loved me." Vaughn said hesitantly.

She averted his gaze. "I told you before that you weren't supposed to hear that."

"Are you taking it back?" He asked seriously.

She turned a pair of troubled eyes on him. "Michael, you know what happens to the people I love. They either end up dead or they disappear for years or in Will's case, they get abducted by lunatic sociopaths." She said dryly.

Vaughn gave her a sympathetic look. "Syd, I know you like to blame yourself for everything bad that happens in your world, but what happened to Danny and Noah and Will was not all your fault."

"How can you say that?" She cried out. "I am the reason Danny was murdered and Noah--well, Noah and I were the only two people in that room when he died and his death wasn't from natural causes."

"Sydney, Danny was a good guy, but he didn't have the knowledge of whom he was dealing with when he left that message on your answering machine." He said gently. "And Noah was a brutal assassin who masqueraded as your knight in shining armor and thought his charm would be enough to whisk you away from your dangerous, complicated life." He turned sour upon speaking of Noah, who would always be a sore spot with him even though the man was dead and gone.

"And Will?"

"Him?" Vaughn wanted to make a disparaging remark about his rival-who-really-wasn't, but he took the high road. "Will is just too damn inquisitive for his own good."

"Michael, you're trying to take the blame off me and attach it to their shortcomings." She protested. "Yes, you're right about everything. Their actions played a role in their own demises, but I still should have warned Danny more strenuously and I should have been more suspicious of Noah and I should have been more forceful with Will in telling him to back off the story."

"But I didn't do any of those things and now they're all dead or God knows where in Will's case!" Sydney burst out. "Don't you see that I don't want anything like that to happen to you?" She said pleadingly.

"But, Syd, the thing you're not taking into consideration is that I'm not Danny and I'm not Noah and I'm certainly not Will." Vaughn allowed himself a little jab at the other man currently in Sydney's life. "I am fully aware of what SD-6 is capable of, I would never underestimate your tenacity or your desire to take down the bad guys and I'm not a nosy reporter who can't seem to mind his own business." He played it straight even though Sydney rolled her eyes at him.

"Michael," Sydney gave him a chastising look. "There's no need to put Will down. You've never even officially met the man."

But I see him through your eyes and it makes me nervous to see how much you care for him. "Forget I mentioned him." Vaughn brushed the subject of Will to the wayside. "The point I'm trying to make is that you don't have to be afraid for me. I know it doesn't always look like it, but I can take care of myself." He tried to coax a smile out of her beautiful face.

Sydney gazed at him uncertainly. Why was she so reluctant to tell him how she felt about him? This was the second chance she had wished for and now she was getting cold feet? Maybe Michael was right that she could only speak from her heart if she was sure it wouldn't get broken.

But now was not the time to be coy. If the Fates had deigned to smile on her for just this once in her hard-luck life, she should embrace it for all it was worth. Maybe only then would she find the true happiness she had always wanted.

Sydney paused for a deep breath before she spoke again. "Michael, what you heard me say was the truth." She met his gaze with a steady one of her own. "I love you." Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. "I've loved you for a long time, I think, and it scares me to death that I almost didn't get the chance to tell you."

Vaughn felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. After months of wondering and hoping, he finally had the answer to the question that had occupied most of his waking thoughts (and some of his non-waking ones as well). Could Sydney Bristow fall in love with me? The answer appeared to be a resounding yes.

His face crinkled into a relieved smile and he traced a finger down her cheek. "It's okay, Syd. You've finally said it and you don't have to have any fears or regrets about anything."

"But, Michael, what about you?" She blurted out, an anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Vaughn suddenly laughed out loud. "Sydney, I've been wearing my heart on my sleeve for months now! How can you even question it?"

"Maybe because you haven't said it yet?" She pointed out with an arched eyebrow. "Now who's got issues?"

Vaughn pretended to be insulted. "Sydney Bristow, I love you." He said emphatically. "I think I might have loved you from the very first moment you stepped into my office with that hideous red fright wig and one side of your face swollen up like a balloon." His expression changed to one of tenderness. "You were definitely a sight to behold."

"Oh, God, is that the story we're going to have to tell when everyone asks how we first met?" Sydney covered her face in embarrassment.

"Hey, it might even become as famous as my Mickey Mouse tale of horror." He quipped and she laughed. He smiled at the sound and she suddenly became self-conscious when she felt him studying her.

"Why so quiet all of a sudden?" Vaughn asked.

"It's just something that occurred to me." She gave him a shy look. "Michael, do you realize that we are probably the only two people on earth who have fallen in love with each other and we've never even exchanged a single kiss?" A blush rose into her cheeks.

"Well, you can remedy that situation very easily, you know." He said suggestively.

"Oh, yeah?" A faint smile played about her lips. "How?" She asked innocently.

"Come here and I'll show you." Sydney leaned forward and Vaughn laid a gentle hand on the side of her face as their lips met for the first time. He was still feeling the aftereffects from his impromptu underwater Houdini impression, but the healing powers from Sydney's lips were invigorating him. He gathered her to him hungrily, months of desire and longing suddenly making their way to the surface of his thoughts. He felt the tip of her tongue against his and it drove him crazy.

Their kiss was tentative at first as if they were both feeling each other out. Sydney's mind was awhirl as she drank him in deeply. She felt the stubble of his unshaven face against her cheek and even though it scratched her, she felt thankful because it was tangible proof that he was still alive and breathing and in her arms. The musk of his skin inflamed her senses and she almost felt as if she were the one drowning as his lips sought hers out again and again.

To be continued…

Author's Note: Hi, I just wanted to leave you with a note about my Vaughn characterization in this chapter and probably future chapters. I know from a show perspective, we've never seen him be very jokey or playful with Sydney, so I know I have no real basis for writing him that way. But since no one knows exactly how he will behave with her once he says those three little words (and you know us shippers are hoping he will someday!), this is just my way of making him how I would want him to be with Sydney.  Only J.J. knows for sure.

Anyway, thanks for reading and please review!