Author's Note: Please assume that Sydney and Vaughn are speaking Italian when talking to the locals. I've added some Italian here and there just for flavor. I know I could have looked up the translations, but that seemed like a lot of extra work and I wanted to get this out as soon as I could for everyone who's been asking for the next chapter (thanks so much for your very positive feedback! I really do appreciate it!).
P.S. If you're really missing the authenticity of Italian-speaking Vaughn, my advice is to just imagine how freaking HOT he is whenever he speaks in a foreign language and hopefully it'll make up for my laziness (Hee!).
Oh, yeah, and to all of you who guessed ENGAGEMENT RING, you were right, but as always, it's not going to turn out the way you think (I've got something else planned for right now).
Hope you enjoy the read and please keep checking in with your reviews!
* * * * *
"Michael?" Sydney uttered his name softly. "What is that?" She asked again.
Vaughn had just settled back into his seat when he caught the shell-shocked look on Sydney's face. He followed her stunned gaze down to what she was staring at and felt a twinge in his gut when he realized what was causing her catatonic-like state. Idiot! How could you be so casual about giving her something like that? He hastened to explain.
"I'm sorry, Syd, that was insensitive of me." Vaughn said, feeling deeply apologetic.
He was sorry? "Does your apology mean you're taking it back?"
He winced. "No, I just--it's not--I mean, I shouldn't have acted so blasé just now when I gave that to you." He stammered out. "I should have realized that a little black velvet box has certain connotations attached to it and…" Vaughn suddenly trailed off, not knowing what else to say. Sydney looked as hopeful and excited as a little girl who couldn't wait to open her presents on Christmas morning and his heart ached for her.
"When I see a box like that, it usually means there's a ring inside." She still hadn't taken her eyes away from the small square box with its rounded corners and gold trim. "And if there's a ring, there's also a question that precedes it." Sydney finally looked up at Vaughn with a wistful look on her face.
A pained grimace shot across his face. "Sydney, honey, I'm sorry, but it's not what you think." Vaughn watched as her face fell and it nearly killed him to burst her bubble like that. "Irina gave that to me last night. It's just a prop."
"A prop?" She repeated, momentarily confused.
"Yeah, you know." Vaughn felt like an absolute clod. "Because we're supposed to be married?"
"Oh, right." Sydney finally let out the breath she'd been holding, a disappointed feeling in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't real, after all. Nothing in her life was real, it seemed. Maybe he wasn't even real. His perfection was just an illusion her addled mind had conjured up.
"Sydney, please forgive me." Vaughn pleaded in a quiet voice. "I had no idea you'd react this way. I mean, it didn't seem like such a big deal to you when Irina gave us our fake wedding rings in the car."
"Well, I think that had more to do with the way she did it, you know?" She gave an unassuming shrug. "There were no 'I do's.' No 'I now pronounce you man and wife.' It was just 'Here's your ring. Put it on.'" Sydney tried to play off her embarrassment by making jokes.
"Syd…" Vaughn saw right through her and in a way, she was grateful that he could read her so well.
"I'm behaving like a complete fool, aren't I?" Sydney covered her face with her hands for a brief moment of self-pity and then suddenly took them away, a fake bright smile plastered on her face. "Oh, come on, let's see what I'm making such a fuss about!" She reached for the black velvet box and opened the lid. A breathtakingly beautiful "diamond" engagement ring winked back at her.
"Wow." Vaughn uttered softly. "They're doing great work with cubic zirconia these days."
"It is gorgeous." Sydney agreed. It was exactly the sort of ring she would have picked out for herself had she had the opportunity: a large-but-not-too-large pear-cut center "diamond" flanked by two smaller pear-cut sidestones, all of which were set into an ornately designed band of "gold." Sydney was surprised to discover how affected she was by the sight of a few diamond-like imitations and a cheap piece of scrap metal. Then she realized it wasn't about the size of the stones or if the band was yellow gold or platinum. It was about what it meant when someone asked you to spend the rest of your life with him. Sydney started to wonder for the umpteenth time if she would ever have a life that included engagement rings and china patterns and bouquet-tossing.
"Sydney, are you okay?" Vaughn asked apprehensively.
"I'll be fine, Michael." She gave him a quick but subdued smile. "It just got to me for a moment. You know, the whole floating-on-a-cloud feeling you get when the man you're in love with pops the big question."
Sydney's eyes had a sad look in them and Vaughn wished there was something he could do so that he would never have to see that look in her eyes again. "I've actually never experienced the pleasure of asking someone to marry me." He confessed.
She looked sideways at him. "It never got to that point with Alice?"
"No," He shook his head a tad too vehemently. "Not even close."
"Danny proposed to me on campus." Sydney told him in a soft voice. "He got down on one knee, took the ring out of his pocket and then he suddenly burst into song." She smiled at the lovely memory and then her smile slowly faded as she remembered how her last (and only) engagement had turned out.
Vaughn agonized for a way in which to make things right again. After racking his brain, he finally picked up the ring box and removed the ring from its little slot. Without a word, he reached for Sydney's left hand and lovingly placed the ring on her third finger, laying it to rest right above the "gold" wedding band Irina had given to her. It was a perfect fit.
"I wish it was for real, Sydney." He said quietly.
Sydney was so moved by his declaration, a lump rose in her throat. "I do, too." She whispered, cradling his face in her hands and placing a gentle kiss on his lips.
When they pulled away, Vaughn took her left hand in his and they admired the ring together. Who cared if it was just cubic zirconia and a gold-plated metal that would probably turn her finger green? He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I promise you that it will happen someday."
She smiled at him as she brushed away a tear. "And don't think I won't hold you to that promise, Agent Vaughn." A speculative look appeared on her face as she moved her hand back and forth to let the light play off the "diamonds." "This is a pretty nice sparkler considering it's a fake. Do you think she had it specially made for me?"
"What, as some kind of bribe?" Vaughn raised an eyebrow. "Somehow I don't think Irina would try to win you over with fake jewelry."
"Yeah, knowing her, she'd probably try to do it with the genuine article." Sydney said mockingly. "Maybe one day I can look forward to inheriting a diamond tiara or a humongous ruby ring from one of her Russian czarina ancestors." She made a face.
"Oh, right, I've heard that tiaras are all the rage these days for your well-dressed spies." He snorted appreciatively at his little joke.
"Hey, I'd look good in a black catsuit with a diamond-studded tiara in my hair!" She pretended to be outraged, but she couldn't keep from grinning.
"Well, the catsuit, anyway." Vaughn added a bit lasciviously, glad to see that Sydney appeared to be out of her funk. He took another glance at her hand, thinking back to the night before when Irina had come to his room to give him the ring. "You know, looking at that ring just now makes me think about a rather strange comment Irina made when she gave it to me." He looked thoughtful.
"What did she say?"
"Well, I asked her why she didn't just give it to you herself and she said, 'Even though it's not real, I think Sydney would appreciate this more if it came from you rather than me.'" Vaughn quoted and then shook his head. "Don't you think that's kind of an odd thing to say?"
Sydney looked confused. "Does she think I like to go around collecting engagement rings?" She cracked. "Because I already have one at home, thank you very much, and I don't need her fake one."
"No, I don't think it's anything as weird as that." His forehead furrowed into a frown. "I think it has more to do with the sentiment behind the ring rather than the ring itself. When you present someone with an engagement ring and you ask her to marry you, that's a big deal. You're offering up a lifetime commitment."
Vaughn gave Sydney a little nudge in the shoulder. "Maybe she thought it would give me ideas of doing it for real." His lips twitched as he tried to hide a smile.
Sydney was mortified. "Do you think she was hinting for you to ask me to marry you?"
Vaughn's expression was one of amusement. "Oh, Syd, I certainly don't need Irina's help for that thought to be put in my head." He said, an enigmatic smile on his face.
* * * * *
After a restless night of sleep, Sydney and Vaughn awoke to the rattle of the meal carts being pushed up the aisle by the flight attendants. They both accepted a breakfast tray consisting of a surprisingly edible cheese omelet, a somewhat appetizing round of apple pastry and a fruit cup with real pineapple and kiwi fruit. It wasn't a gourmet feast, but it was something to put into their stomachs plus the juice was cold and the coffee was hot.
The flight arrived on schedule and soon they were disembarking from the plane. From the moment they stepped into the terminal, Sydney and Vaughn became Amélie and François Chabert. They spoke only in French, displaying their tourist status rather pointedly by breaking out their Italy travel guidebooks, and did not do anything that would be thought of as suspicious, such as dawdling behind the rest of the passengers or ducking into the restrooms to drastically alter their appearances through disguise. Instead they went directly to Customs, where their processing took about half an hour, and then they left the airport in a taxi.
After a lengthy but scenic drive through the city of Rome, the taxi finally pulled up in front of the Hotel Bellini. Irina had chosen the hotel for its close proximity to the Vatican, which was within five minutes walking distance. As Sydney waited for Vaughn to pay the driver, she looked around to check out their surroundings and noted that she could see the dome of St. Peter's Basilica towering high over the tops of the other buildings.
"Amélie?" Vaughn put a hand under her elbow and they walked into the lobby together.
The interior of the hotel was pleasant if a little uninspired. Marble floors and columns ringed a large communal seating area in the center of the lobby, a room that was decorated in a watercolor scheme of aqua and sea green and lavender. The people lounging around on the plush velvet sofas had a nice view of the pool through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but if they didn't want to stare at the girls in bikinis or the guys in Speedos, they could admire the tall vases of purple orchids placed on ebony pedestals throughout the room or check out the interesting artwork on the walls. The Hotel Bellini was one of the newer mid-priced hotels in the city, large enough for them to be able to blend in yet still exclusive enough that the noise level in the lobby did not rise above a dull roar.
"Do you want to come with me to check in?" Vaughn asked Sydney in a low voice, speaking in French even though there was no one around to overhear their conversation.
She arched an eyebrow. "Was it ever a question that I wouldn't?"
Vaughn felt a faint flush suffuse his face. "Sorry, I wasn't sure about the married people etiquette when it comes to hotel check-ins. When I was a kid, my dad always took care of that stuff while my mom watched after me to make sure I didn't go flinging myself off the high diving board into the pool the moment her back was turned."
Sydney stifled a grin. "I had no idea you were such a precocious kid, François." She said teasingly and stuck her arm through his as they both got in line to check in.
The line moved quickly and soon they were at the counter. The young woman who checked them in had very shiny curly black hair, big brown eyes and a nametag that read "Raffaella."
"Buon giorno, how may I help you?" Raffaella asked pleasantly, gazing quite appreciatively at the attractive man standing in front of her. Too bad it looked as if he had a girlfriend.
"Buon giorno, mi chiamo François Chabert. Ho una prenotazione." (Good afternoon, my name is François Chabert. I have a reservation.) Vaughn said in perfect Italian, giving the pretty girl a friendly smile.
Raffaella blushed as the handsome Frenchman smiled at her. "Grazie, Signor Chabert." She said shyly as she typed his name into the computer. Sydney, who for the most part was being ignored, rolled her eyes at their little exchange and nudged Vaughn with her elbow. He gave her a sideways look and a shrug of his shoulders as if to say, "I can't help it if she thinks I'm hot." to which Sydney responded with another roll of her eyes.
"Oh, yes, here is your reservation." Raffaella tapped a few keys on her keyboard. "And I see that your room has already been paid for in advance for one night."
Paid for in advance from an untraceable bank account, Sydney added silently. Since Vaughn's credit cards were fake and Irina hadn't wanted them to pay for their room in cash, she had arranged for the money to be wired to the hotel from a Swiss bank account, one of the many she seemed to have.
"It is a shame that you are only spending one night in our beautiful city." Raffaella lamented as she activated their hotel room card keys and waited for the printer to finish printing out their receipt.
Before Vaughn could say anything, Sydney jumped in. "Yes, it is too bad but neither François nor I can bear to be away from our four children for any length of time." She said sweetly, thus turning Vaughn from a sexy heartthrob into a fuddy-duddy old dad. "We have two boys and two girls." She added proudly.
"Wow, four children! You must be very proud." Raffaella smiled at her. "We have four children in my family, too. I am the youngest."
"Oh, lucky you!" Sydney cooed. "Our youngest, Jeannette, gets away with everything, so it must be the same for you!" She could feel Vaughn's laser beams staring at her, but she was having too much fun to care.
"That's what my mama says, but I don't think so." Raffaella shook her head as she waited for Vaughn to sign the receipt and the hotel register. "My brother, Marco, has it much easier than I do. He gets to do anything he wants because he's the oldest."
"Oh, I think we are much stricter with our oldest, Michel. He always complains that we are too lenient with the younger children." Sydney let out a laugh.
"Here you go." Vaughn said in a louder-than-normal voice, handing Raffaella the register and the receipt. The young Italian girl gave them the yellow copy of the receipt along with their card keys. Then she rang for a bellman to help them with their bags.
"Enjoy your stay, Signor e Signora Chabert!" She smiled as the bellman arrived.
Sydney left the counter with a self-satisfied look on her face. Vaughn put an arm around her shoulders to bring her closer to him. "What was all that about?" He whispered in her ear, an incredulous tone to his voice.
"Are you asking about my natural ability to embellish off the top of my head?" She asked innocently.
"You were going a little overboard, don't you think?" Vaughn couldn't help but be amused. "Making up names for our four kids?"
"I only made up two names." Sydney corrected him. "And just so you know, you started it by flirting with her!" She said laughingly.
"Sweetheart, I wasn't flirting with her." He protested. "When I flirt, it goes way beyond a smile." Vaughn shot her a suggestive leer.
Sydney gave a sexy little growl. "Oooh, you'll have to practice on me some time." She grinned as they headed into the elevator with the bellman.
Their room was on the third floor. Sydney and Vaughn waited in the hallway as the bellman unlocked their door. He allowed them to enter the room before him and then placed their bags inside of the tiny closet.
Sydney took a look around. It was a nice room, but undistinguishable from every other hotel room she had ever been in. Stark whitewashed walls, beige shag carpeting, inexpensively made wood veneer furniture. A small round table and two low-slung chairs were set up next to the window and a television sat atop a dresser with four drawers. The bedspread on the queen-sized bed was an unassuming gold-and-white stripe, but the mattress looked comfortable enough. Two nightstands were placed on either side of the bed, a phone sitting on one and a clock radio sitting on the other.
Sydney was a bit disappointed at the plainness of the room, but she managed to keep her feelings hidden from Vaughn. It wasn't the setting she had pictured in her mind when she thought of them making love for the first time, but after waiting as long as they had, she couldn't place that much importance on the décor. It was the act that mattered to her, not the surroundings.
She strolled over to the window to take in their view while Vaughn tipped the bellman. Once the man left, Vaughn sat down at the table and opened his briefcase to go over his notes.
He and Sydney had worked out a couple of contingency plans, one featuring their escape and one featuring them actually going through with Irina's scheme.
They figured that once they were away from Irina's watchful eye, they could contact Devlin in L.A. and he would be able to send in an extraction team to get them. They were fairly certain that their movements would not be monitored while they were in Rome (Sydney was sure her mother trusted her implicitly), so Irina would have no clue that their defection would be due to their own efforts and not of those from the CIA.
Sydney and Vaughn both realized that willingly surrendering themselves to the American Embassy or the nearest CIA branch office was not a viable option. Besides the fact that Irina would see this as an act of betrayal of the worst possible kind, they both knew it would not be a piece of cake to simply walk into the Embassy and try to make the powers that be believe the incredible tale of what had happened to them. These days, security was at an all-time high in U.S. government offices--even more so on foreign soil--and they had nothing with them that would identify their status as government agents or even as American citizens. All they had were their fake French passports, which meant they would be going in with nothing but their word to back them up and they both knew how far that would take them. Perhaps as far as the nearest jail cell?
No, it had to look as if the CIA had somehow gotten word as to what they were going to do at the Vatican and then planned a counter-mission in order to foil them. Irina would think they had walked into a trap set up by the CIA in order to capture the enemy, when in reality it would serve as their means for extraction. The benefits of this plan were threefold: Sydney and Vaughn would be free of Irina's chains, they would be able to go back to their own lives and most importantly, Irina would not come after them as an act of revenge for their duplicity.
Vaughn realized how imperative it was that he and Sydney remain on Irina's good side, even in absentia. He had already seen how easily Irina could manipulate her daughter through flowery words and a few tearful speeches. He didn't want to find out what she could do to them if there was hatred in her eyes and vengeance in her heart. Right now, Irina was their ally and while he didn't like it one bit that he was kowtowing to her, it was a necessary course of action because it meant Sydney would be safe. Irina would have no reason for retaliation if she believed that their "capture" was through no fault of their own.
Of course, their entire escape plan hinged on the theory that they had to contact someone who could vouch for them and set everything in motion. Devlin was their best bet because he was hopefully aware of their situation and could get the ball rolling, but Jack or Weiss would do in a pinch.
In the worst possible scenario--if they couldn't make contact with anyone--he and Sydney would have to do what they came to do. They would go in the same way they had before--through the sewer. Vaughn wondered to himself if the damage they had wrought a few months earlier had been completely fixed or if it had just been a patch job. Or maybe no one had done anything yet. They wouldn't know until they got down there.
Once inside the vault, he and Sydney would locate the Rambaldi painting and then make tracks back to the getaway van. Within a few hours, they were supposed to be on a plane bound for Moscow.
"Michael?" Sydney's voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Hmmm?" He said absently.
"Do you remember what we were talking about on the plane?"
He looked up. "Refresh my memory, Syd. We talked about a lot of things."
She turned from the window and beckoned him silently with her finger. "I was telling you that I wanted to get a leather bag while we were here."
Vaughn frowned, not recalling any such frivolous topic of conversation. He got up to join her. "What are you--"
She put a finger to his lips. From behind the curtain, Sydney pointed to the fair-haired man standing on the opposite side of the street. It was unmistakably Sark.
"Well, now we know where he took off to." Vaughn remarked in a low mumble.
Sydney met Vaughn's gaze. They both knew what the other was thinking. She grabbed his hand and led him into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Without a word, she reached into the shower to turn the water on full-blast, so that the sound of the rushing water would drown out their conversation.
Sydney leaned in close to his ear. "Why didn't she tell us he was coming to chaperone us?"
"She's doing to us what she did to you when you met Jack in Taipei. Our first time out, you knew she was going to pull her loyalty test on us." Vaughn looked at her. "It's a good thing we didn't make our move at the airport. He was probably there waiting for us and you know what would have happened if we'd made a break for it." He said grimly.
"Irina would have had us apprehended, flown back to Taipei and probably facing a firing squad." She gave him a worried look. "Michael, Sark was in Rome before us. Do you think he might have bugged the room?"
"It's a possibility." Vaughn conceded. "Maybe we should ask for a different room."
Sydney looked incensed. "Damn them and their manipulations! This was supposed to be our night, Michael! Our one chance!" Angry tears sprang to her eyes.
"Hush, Syd, it will turn out all right." Vaughn reached out with his thumb to brush away the wetness from her cheeks.
"Do you really want them to be able to listen in on our first time together?" She asked furiously.
"I don't know. Do you make a lot of noise in bed?" He quipped with a completely serious expression on his face.
"Michael!" Sydney pretended to be scandalized that such a provocative comment would fall from his lips, but the truth was, it tickled her. How could she ever have believed Agent Michael Vaughn to be so sedate and by-the-book? There was a sexy beast lurking beneath his perfectly pressed suits and she was dying to let him out.
She also realized that he was a wise beast because his outrageous remark did what he had intended. Her anger was immediately cut in half and instead she had the ridiculous urge to take him right then and there. But what held her back was the thought that the bathroom might be bugged as well. "Please be serious!" She tried to give him a stern look. "It's an invasion of our privacy!"
"Sydney, there's no rule that says we have to stay here tonight." He said mildly.
"What? You want to deviate from the Grand Master Plan?" Sydney said loftily, doing a dead-on impression of her mother's accent. "There is no room for improvisation, Michael!" Her voice was full of Irina's reproach.
"Syd, don't, you're giving me the creeps chewing me out in your mother's voice." Vaughn shuddered and then shot her a grin. "Seriously, though, we don't have to stay here." His eyes started to twinkle.
"You and I can lose Sark with one hand tied behind our backs." Vaughn said in his most confident manner. "We'll sneak out through an employees' entrance, have a fantastic dinner and then we'll look for a romantic little hotel where we can spend the night and Sark will never find us." He kissed the corner of her mouth, trying to make the pout go away.
"You want to go out to dinner?" She gave him a look of surprise, pressing her body against him as he started trailing kisses down her neck while she pretended to be oblivious. "I thought we were just going to stay here to eat."
"Oh, come on now, Syd," Vaughn suddenly stopped as he reached her collarbone to look at her. "You agreed to go on a date with me the next time we were in Rome and I'm holding you to your word."
A look of confusion passed across her lovely face and then it cleared. "You're taking me to Trattoria di Nardi?" She squealed delightedly.
Vaughn wished Sydney could always be as happy as she looked at that moment, her face lit up and her eyes aglow. "Where else would we go, but my favorite restaurant in all of Italy?"
"Oh, Michael!" She threw her arms around his neck and held him close. "If I ever needed any proof of why I love you so much, this is it." Sydney pulled back and kissed him long and hard on the mouth.
"And if I ever needed any proof, that kiss sealed it right there." Vaughn smiled, kissing the tip of her nose. "Now come on, why don't you hop in that shower and get ready while I go downstairs to confirm our reservation?"
Sydney suddenly frowned. "Michael, I just realized I didn't bring a thing to wear! At least, not anything special."
He gave her a mischievous look. "Oh, I think if you check your bag, you might find something."
She eyed him shrewdly. "You've been planning this ever since Irina told us we were coming to Rome, haven't you?"
"Guilty." He admitted.
"How did you call to make the reservation? You didn't use one of the phones in her house, did you?" Sydney looked alarmed. "Michael, if Irina knows about this, she'll have told Sark and he'll follow us!"
"Relax, Sydney," Vaughn said soothingly. "I snagged Sark's cell phone one day when I was rummaging through his closet for something to wear. By the time he gets the bill and sees the number, we'll either be home or in Moscow and it'll be too late for them to do anything about it then."
Sydney smiled like a Cheshire cat. "Ingenious, Agent Vaughn."
Vaughn grinned. "Now get going!" He patted her on the behind to move her along.
To be continued…