Over the next few days, preparations for the mission were hammered out and set in place. Sydney and Vaughn would fly from Taipei to Rome, spend the night, complete their mission the next evening and then be on the next flight to Moscow. Sydney was a bit surprised to learn that they would not be returning to Taipei (although if she had her way, she and Vaughn would be on a plane to Los Angeles, not Moscow) and surmised that the reason for the journey to Moscow was because Irina wanted to show off her newly reclaimed daughter before her oh-so-secretive Council.

On the morning before they were to leave, Sydney awoke a little after eight o'clock. After a leisurely hot shower, she got dressed in jeans and a white tank top and then left her bedroom to head downstairs to breakfast. As she reached the top of the stairs, she spotted Vaughn coming out of his room at the opposite end of the corridor, so she waited for him.

He looked amazing as always in faded jeans and an eggplant-colored long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves rolled up to show off his strong forearms and the collar unbuttoned just enough to give her a tantalizing glimpse of his chest. A little tingle shot up and down her spine as he walked towards her. Sydney had always thought he looked very attractive in his business suits, but there was just something about his loose, casual look that really got to her. And he was definitely a man who looked good in bold colors. She made a mental note never to buy him anything in pastels.

"Good morning," Vaughn smiled at her, interlocking his fingers with hers as he kissed her lingeringly on the mouth. She looked beautiful and smelled incredible and it was all he could do not to ravish her right then and there.

"Good morning," Sydney murmured as they broke apart. "Did you sleep well?"

"Hmmm, not as well as I could have if I hadn't been alone." His lips dove for a spot on her neck as if he were a vampire and Sydney squealed, pretending to fight him off while laughing at him.

"Michael, not here!" She giggled even as his breath tickled her sensitive skin. "Irina or Sark might see us!"

"I know, I know!" He groaned. She truly was torturing him. "Come on, let's go eat." He held on to her hand and they walked downstairs to the dining room.

The moment they stepped into the room, Sydney noticed a drastic change. Her mother was there as usual, but Sark was not. She looked at Vaughn questioningly and he shrugged, not knowing the answer, either.

"Oh, good morning, Sydney, Michael!" Irina called out, sipping her tea. "Please come and join me."

Sydney and Vaughn went over to the sideboard, which held a number of warming trays, a fruit platter and a basket of freshly baked blueberry muffins. Vaughn filled his plate while Sydney selected a muffin and a cup of coffee. She sat down before he did and looked at her mother.

"So where's Sark?" Sydney asked casually. It wasn't that she cared so especially much about spending quality time (not!) with her brother. It just made her uneasy not to have him where she could keep an eye on him. The sheer havoc the man could create was tremendous and it was just easier on her nerves if she was able to keep tabs on what he was doing.

"Oh, it is nothing for you to be concerned about, dear." Irina waved her hand carelessly. "Sergei just went on a little reconnaissance mission for me. He left late last night."

"When will he be back?"

"I believe he should be finished with his work around the same time you will be, so I expect to have him arrive in Moscow not long after you do." Irina kept her son's whereabouts and activities purposely vague. "Speaking of plane flights, Sydney, has everything been arranged for you and Michael?" And then Irina went off talking about the mission and that took up most of the conversation during breakfast.

The rest of the morning and part of the afternoon was spent going over the mission specs. Irina finally let Sydney and Vaughn go around two o'clock and they escaped outside to their hammock by the lookout. It was there that they went over their own secret plans.

They had had to devise their own method of escape after realizing that Jack Bristow's plan had failed to come to fruition. Both Sydney and Vaughn had taken a dose of the radioactive isotopes as soon as they returned to the house and then waited eagerly for the troops to storm the mountaintop retreat. Unfortunately, no one ever came, which meant something had gone wrong and they were still without hope that anyone knew where they were.

Luckily, Irina's Vatican mission came along, which provided them with their first opportunity for flight. They spent hours going over every possible scenario and poring over every little detail. If everything clicked in exactly the right way, there was a chance that they would be able to make a getaway.

"This is our one big chance, isn't it, Michael?" Sydney let out a sigh. The two of them were side by side in the hammock, but sitting perpendicular to its length, their shoulders touching and their legs hanging over the side. She started trying to see if they could swing back and forth while he stretched his arms above his head and then put one around her.

"Well, I don't know if it's our 'big' chance as much as it is our first." He remarked. "If this doesn't work out, Syd, there will be other moments."

Sydney was silent. She didn't want to think what she was thinking, but how could she not? In spite of everything that was going on, this time they had been able to spend together had been almost idyllic. No disguised phone calls, no sneaking around, no worrying that someone would see them together. Her stress level was way down and she knew it was partly because being here with her mother gave them a certain amount of freedom that they would never be able to have back home. She wondered how Vaughn would react if she told him that she was actually feeling a little reluctant about leaving Taipei.

"Michael, can I ask you something?" She said tentatively.

"What?" His eyes were closed as the warm sun felt good against his face.

"Do you think we're doing the right thing?"

Vaughn caught the hesitant note in her voice and opened his eyes. "What do you mean?" He turned to look at her.

"I mean, about wanting to leave." Sydney looked away, unable to meet his gaze.

His mouth dropped open and he was struck speechless. How could Sydney be having doubts about wanting to go home? It was something that they talked about constantly and she had always made it seem as if it were of the utmost importance to her. Was this Irina's influence? Was Sydney falling prey to her mother's sweet-talking machinations?

"What are you saying, Syd?" Vaughn asked in a quiet voice. "Are you telling me you want to stay with your mother?"

"No, no, it's not about her." Her big brown eyes were troubled as she met his green-eyed gaze. "I won't deny that she and I have reconnected somehow these past few weeks. I didn't mean to let it happen, but it has."

"So you no longer hate her as much as you did before?" He said slowly, not liking where the conversation was headed.

"I-I think I understand her better and it's made me see the things she's done in a different light." Sydney admitted.

"You don't condone the things she did, do you?" Vaughn gave her a hard look, a sharp edge to his voice. "What she did to my father and to your father?"

"No, Michael," Sydney stressed urgently. "But that's not even what I'm talking about!" She got up off the hammock and strode over to the retaining wall. Vaughn got up to follow her.

"Syd, talk to me." His voice was warm and soothing and it felt like a caress against her cheek.

She turned to face him. "This has to do with us. About what we have here."

"Sydney, our leaving here isn't going to change anything between us." Vaughn said gently.

"How do you know that?" She said plaintively. "This place is like a fantasyland." He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Okay, it's a fantasyland with bars on the windows and armed guards, but you know what I mean. When we're here, I feel free." She said, giving a helpless shrug. She wasn't explaining this right and he wasn't understanding what she was trying to say.

"Free?" Vaughn repeated blankly. "I don't know if that's the word I would use."

"Not free in the sense that we can come and go as we please, but free meaning that we don't always have to be so cautious all the time." She looked up at him. "We don't have to always be looking over our shoulders or meeting in places where we can't even look at each other. You can give me a Christmas present and I can actually say out loud who gave it to me." Her lower lip trembled.

Vaughn nodded, finally understanding. "And I'm not labeled 'emotionally attached' just because I care about you."

"That's it." She said softly. "We can be ourselves here, Michael, at least with each other. We can be in love and not have it mean the end of the world."

"But, Syd, you just pointed out the fly in the ointment." He gave her a wry smile. "We can only be ourselves when we're with each other. The rest of the time we have to pretend to be people we're not, particularly around Irina and Sark. Is that how you want to live your life?"

"I don't know, it sounds like a pretty good trade-off." Sydney tried to make a wisecrack, but failed. She let out a frustrated groan. "Oh, Michael, I don't know what I'm saying! Of course I don't want to stay here for the rest of our lives, but I'm just so scared of losing what we've found with each other. In spite of everything that's going on, this is the happiest I've ever been and I'm so afraid of it all disappearing the moment we set foot off of this estate." Her eyes filled with tears.

Vaughn reached up to brush away a stray hair that had fallen across her face. "Sydney, we're not being held captive in some magical fairytale castle. Yes, it is the place where everything came together and where we were able to say 'I love you' for the first time, but it didn't make us fall in love with each other." His voice was gentle. "The feelings we share for one another didn't happen overnight. They developed over a period of months. They're inside of us, Sydney, and they'll be with us wherever we are."

"But you know what it will be like once we get back home. We'll have to be more careful than ever and we still might only be able to see each other two or three times a week at that dank, dingy warehouse." She gave him a petulant look. "I've gotten spoiled being able to look at you or touch you whenever I want and not have anyone blink an eye."

"It'll be difficult, Sydney. I won't deny that." Vaughn said seriously, tipping her chin up with his finger to make her look at him. "But we'll make it work. We've done it for this long and we'll do it for however long it takes."

"Because now we know what it can be like for us." He gazed soulfully into her beautiful brown eyes. "You've given me a dream, Syd, and I'm not going to give it up until I realize it."

Sydney nodded, allowing a quick smile to spread across her face. "Okay." She whispered just as his mouth covered hers.

*     *     *     *     *

Even though they were not due to leave until late the next evening, Sydney and Vaughn said their goodnights relatively early. He went off to raid Sark's closets one more time while she went to her room to pack her own bag. Since they weren't planning on coming back, Sydney was only taking a change of clothing, an extra top and her workman's uniform. While they were away, Irina was going to have the rest of her wardrobe packed and shipped to Moscow.

Sydney had just turned down her bed when there was a knock on her door. She didn't expect it to be Vaughn because he knew they couldn't talk freely inside the house and the only other person who had been in her room before was Sark and he was off God knows where. Perhaps it was one of the maids, wanting to tidy up the bathroom.

"Yes? Who is it?" She called out.

"Sydney, it's your mother. May I come in?"

Sydney was jolted momentarily. She and Irina usually had their chats in the library, which was a neutral zone and one in which she could keep things polite and on an even keel. They talked about personal things, of course, but it never felt as if they were having intimate, one-on-one conversations where they told each other their deepest thoughts. But now Irina was venturing into her bedroom for the first time and it felt as if she were invading Sydney's private sanctuary.

There weren't many places in the house where she could be herself, to rant and rave or joke and laugh. Whenever she was with anyone else besides Vaughn, Sydney always felt as if she were onstage, playing the part of the devoted daughter or antagonistic sister. Now Irina was making an attempt to push back her defenses even further, to cross the line into sitcom mother-daughter chat-land, where they could talk about how everyone hated her and how no boy would ever look at her and what was she going to wear to the school dance on Friday night?

Sydney didn't want to become best friends with her mother. It was true their relationship had taken a surprising turn for the better in these past few weeks. Her anger towards Irina had receded somewhat and she could almost empathize with what she had been going through at the time of her disappearance from Sydney's life.

But there were some things Sydney couldn't forget, like how deeply her father had been hurt by her mother's betrayal or the fact that Irina had had an affair with her worst enemy. However, what stuck in her mind most of all was the grievous act her mother had perpetrated against Vaughn's father. In her head, she knew that it had been nothing personal against William Vaughn; Irina had just been doing what she was told to do and the senior Vaughn had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But in her heart, all Sydney could think about was the fact that Irina had robbed the person she loved most in the world of one of the most important people in his life and that was what she couldn't forgive. To take a little boy's father away from him was a brutal and heartless act and even though Irina might show remorse for her past misdeeds, Sydney couldn't get past the fact that her mother had been the one to deliver the cruelest blow Vaughn had ever faced.

"Sydney?" Her mother called out her name again, startling her out of her thoughts.

"Yes, of course." Sydney quickly opened her bedroom door to find her mother dressed in a long white nightgown and a matching silk robe. Her face was scrubbed of makeup and her dark hair was loosely gathered at her nape with a white ribbon. She looked years younger, the angles of her face softer and more rounded. It was a drastic change from how Sydney usually saw her, so tightly drawn in her manner and so austere with her look.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you." Irina said hesitantly. Even her demeanor was different.

"No, not at all." Sydney shook her head, moving her small overnight case off the bed. "I was just packing a few things in my bag." She sat down on one side of the bed.

"Oh, well, good." Irina started pacing around the room, seemingly too wound up to sit down. "I just wanted to talk to you before you left tomorrow, but I didn't want to do it downstairs in the library. It's so formal and stuffy and I never feel that you are comfortable sharing things with me when we are in that room."

Sydney flushed, not realizing it had been so obvious.

"I completely understand, of course." Her mother said hastily. "That's why I thought it would be better if we talked in your bedroom. It's a more inviting setting, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes." Sydney nodded.

"You do like your room, don't you?" Irina sounded anxious, as if she were desperately hoping Sydney would place her stamp of approval on the room and by extension, on her.

"Yes, Mom, I like it a lot." Sydney said sincerely and Irina beamed at her. Sydney was surprised to feel pleased that she'd made her mother happy with her response. Irina's feelings had never seemed to matter to her before, but for some reason, tonight was different.

"I'm glad, Sydney. I chose the décor and every stick of furniture with you in mind. Of course, it was a little harder than it sounds." She admitted. "I wasn't sure if your tastes had changed since you were six years old. For all I knew you were still into--what was that doll's name, Sydney? Strawberry Shortbread?" Sydney was taken aback by the mischievous twinkle in her mother's eyes.

"Shortcake, Mom." She grinned in spite of herself. "No, I outgrew her a long time ago, I'm happy to say."

Irina's eyes grew sad. "Have you also outgrown needing your mother, Sydney?"

Her face took on a guarded look. "Why would you ask such a thing, Mom?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "It's just sometimes I get the feeling that you're holding things back from me."

Sydney's muscles grew tense. Was Irina trying to let her know in a roundabout way that she was privy to what she and Vaughn were plotting to do once they got to Rome? Was she warning her of the consequences if she went through with it?

"I know why you're doing it, of course." Irina went on. "You don't want to confide in me because you're afraid I'm going to hurt you again."

That wasn't the response Sydney expected. Maybe Irina wasn't talking about the plan, after all. In any case, Sydney realized she ought to take her mother down that path and away from her true agenda.

"I guess that is part of it, Mom." Sydney said slowly. "You and I were so close when I was a kid. I wanted to be just like you, even down to your profession. It was all because of you that I enrolled in the graduate program at school, so that I could become an English Lit professor like you were."

"But I guess the joke's on me, huh?" She said with a wry twist of her lips. "I still managed to follow in your footsteps, but I became something I didn't set out to be."

Irina turned a troubled gaze on her. "I never wanted this life for you, Sydney. It's dangerous and lonely and ultimately unfulfilling. You give everything you have on every mission, but it's never enough because someone will always demand something more of you on the next one."

"It is hard to deal with sometimes." Sydney admitted. "The most difficult part for me is lying to the people I care about. It eats me up inside not being able to tell my friends the truth about myself."

Irina nodded sympathetically. "You can't tell anyone what you really do, so you can never be completely honest and that immediately puts up a barrier between you that you can never tear down."

"Of course, you are fortunate enough to have Michael. He is a good man, Sydney." Irina said approvingly. She cast a sideways glance at her daughter who had a little smile on her face at the mention of her beloved's name. "You love him with every part of your being, don't you, Sydney?"

Sydney met her mother's gaze. "Yes, Mom." She said clearly and without hesitation. "He's the best part of my life. I don't have to keep any secrets from him. I don't have to pretend to be something I'm not. He knows everything about me yet he still loves me, anyway." For the first time in a long time, Sydney was expressing her true and honest feelings to her mother and Irina was fully aware of it.

"Yes, I can see it every time he looks at you." Irina suddenly looked wistful. "Your father used to look at me the same way."

Sydney always bristled whenever her father's name came up in their conversations. She hated that Irina had taken the love Jack had given her and turned it into something twisted, something to be used against him. Hadn't she realized at the time that Jack Bristow was not a man who gave of his heart freely or foolishly? When he loved, he loved deeply. And when he was betrayed, he felt it even more profoundly.

When Irina left her father, she took some of his best parts along with her. She took his ability to laugh and joke and have fun with his daughter. He was never able to be so relaxed and carefree with Sydney after that and although she used to resent him for it, she resented Irina even more. Her mother was the one who had caused the change in him. Her mother was the one who had stolen her father's love away from her, triggering their estrangement that had lasted for so many years. That wasn't something you could so easily make up for with hugs and kisses and pronouncements of remorse.

"I know you may not believe I am being sincere, Sydney, but I did care for your father." Irina said quietly. "It is true I didn't love him as much as you love Michael or as much as I love you, but you cannot have a child with a man and not feel something for him."

The catch in her mother's voice was convincing and her words did sound heartfelt. Sydney almost started to believe her, but then she thought about Sark. If what her mother was saying was true, then that meant she had felt something for Sloane as well and Sydney simply couldn't tolerate that.

"Sydney? Why are you looking at me like that?"

She hadn't realized her thoughts had transferred themselves to the expression on her face. "I was just thinking about Sark." Sydney said truthfully, not bothering to take the easy way out as she usually did in order to spare her mother from making some difficult explanations.

"Don't you really mean Arvin?" Her mother raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you just said it, didn't you?" Sydney challenged Irina. "You said you couldn't have a child with a man and not feel something for him. Does that mean what you told me about your affair was a lie?"

"No, Sydney, what I told you was the truth." Irina's voice was steadfast. "What happened between me and Arvin was business, plain and simple. There was no feeling, no pleasure."

"You had his child." Sydney said stonily.

"Only because it was Sergei who kept me alive." Her mother finally sat down on the bed next to her. "When I found out I had to leave you, Sydney, I knew it would be the hardest thing I'd ever have to do."

"When the car went into the river, I seriously thought about not coming back up." She confessed. "If I couldn't have my baby, I didn't want to live."

"But then I thought about the baby inside of me. If I didn't survive, then he wouldn't survive and I couldn't bear to take an innocent life."

Sydney tried to comprehend what her mother was telling her. "So are you saying that having the baby wasn't so much about your feelings for Sloane as it was about your feelings for Sark?"

"You could put it that way." Irina nodded. "I am thankful to Arvin for providing me with my son, but that is all."

"That is the difference between Arvin and your father. I have no feelings of remorse for what I did to him and I will not be sorry when his precious SD-6 is leveled to the ground."

Sydney stared at her. "But Dad?"

Irina's eyes filled with genuine regret. "I will always feel badly for what I did to him, Sydney. I know you may think I'm just saying that because I think it is what you want to hear, but don't forget that it was a different set of circumstances. It is true I used them both, but I was married to Jack. I lived with him for ten years." Irina paused. "And I had you with him." She added, as if that explained everything.

Did she believe her mother? Sydney was surprised to admit just how badly she wanted to. Perhaps she just wanted some proof that her mother wasn't the cold, heartless creature she appeared to be.

"Mom, I believe you." Sydney said tentatively. "I believe that you are truly sorry for how you treated Dad." Maybe it was naïve of her to want to see the goodness in her mother and if it came back to haunt her later, she would only have herself to blame. But even accepting that didn't stop her from doing it.

Irina's face curved into a smile. "Thank you, Sydney." And then she did something she never thought she would do again.

She hugged her daughter.

And her daughter let her.

After a few moments of embrace, Irina stepped back. "Well, I better let you finish your packing." She patted Sydney's cheek lovingly. "Good night and sleep tight."

"And don't let the bed bugs bite." They recited together in unison, much to their surprise.

Irina gave her a brief smile. "I haven't thought about that silly rhyme in ages, Sydney."

"You used to say it to me every night before I went to sleep." Sydney reminded her.

"I remember that you would always ask me what a bed bug looked like."

"And I remember that you would never give me a good enough answer."

"That's because I didn't know what one looked like." Irina smiled again and then started for the door. "Good night, Sydney."

"Good night," As an afterthought, she added, "Mom." For the first time in a long time, that word actually meant something to her.

Author's Note: Okay, so my Irina is A LOT nicer than the Irina on TV (at least mine isn't shooting her own daughter!), but maybe she won't turn out to be all bad.

P.S. The next few chapters are going to indulge my shippyness for Syd & Vaughn, but I don't think many of you will mind!

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