Author's Note: I have to take a little break from the shippy stuff to further the plot along.  I originally planned to write the entire night as one chapter, but the date part is pretty lengthy and it doesn't really fit in with the plot stuff, anyway.  So you're getting a short chapter now with lots of romantic fluffiness to follow (some time later in the week since I didn't get a chance to post this one until today).

Thanks to all the people who keep reading and reviewing.  I'm not expecting a lot of feedback for this chapter since it's mostly dialogue and not a lot of action, but it would be nice to hear from you if you have something to say.

See ya later!

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Sydney was admiring herself in the mirror above the dresser while Vaughn was in the bathroom finishing getting dressed. She was wearing a sweet and sexy little red chiffon dress that skimmed just above her knee and clung to her figure in all the right places. The neckline that dipped right above her cleavage was edged with a wispy little ruffle that trailed over her shoulders light-as-air and down her back to form a deep U, showing off a tantalizing expanse of her smooth, tanned skin. She smiled to herself as she glossed her lips. Vaughn had made a perfect choice.

She heard the shower go off in the bathroom (they had kept it on continuously while they were getting dressed to go out) and turned around. Vaughn stood in the doorway looking amazingly handsome, his white shirt casually open at the neck in stark contrast to his well-cut black jacket. His beautiful green eyes leisurely surveyed her body up and down and Sydney felt a little lightning bolt of desire shoot through her.

Vaughn was afraid Sydney would be embarrassed if he stared so openly at her, but he couldn't help it. She looked absolutely stunning in her little red dress, her skin looking like the softest velvet and her bare legs seeming to go on forever. She was gazing at him with an undisguised yearning in her eyes and it took every ounce of willpower he had to resist the pull of her considerable charms. He had planned this night for her because he knew how much she wanted their first time together to be something they would never forget and he intended to make her wish come true.

"Sydney, you look beautiful." Vaughn walked over to her and took her into his arms, her body melding against his in a perfect fit.

She smiled. "You have good taste in clothes."

"And women." He added, leaning in to kiss her. She tasted like strawberries and he told her so.

"It's my lip gloss, which you just ruined, thank you very much." Sydney said teasingly. She reached around him to grab her lip gloss from the dresser and twisted around in his arms to face the mirror.

"I hope that's not a complaint." Vaughn quipped, keeping his arms around her waist as he stood behind her to trail kisses down her neck and along her shoulders while she reapplied her makeup. The fragrance of her skin was intoxicating to him.

"Nope, you can ruin my lip gloss anytime." She grinned at him in the mirror and deposited the little tube of gloss into her purse. She mouthed her next words to him. Are we ready?

Vaughn nodded. He went over to the door and opened it, sticking his head out to look both ways down the corridor. When he saw that the coast was clear, he beckoned to her with his hand and she followed him out.

They took the elevator down to the lobby, but instead of exiting through the hotel entrance like everyone else, they went through a door marked "Employees Only." This door led them into a large break room with various corridors shooting off into a number of different directions. Vaughn had already scouted the area and knew that the offices were down one hallway, the kitchen was down the other and the linen closet was somewhere in-between. Across the room and directly opposite from where they were standing was the employee's entrance from the street. They encountered no one except for a curious housekeeper who didn't say a word as the couple slipped out the door.

Laughing and giddy at successfully eluding Sark, Sydney and Vaughn left the hotel grounds on foot. They wanted to find a phone, first of all, and then they would catch a taxi away from the hotel to get to the restaurant.

Hand in hand, the couple came upon a public square. There was an outdoor café with many people sitting around, drinking and laughing and telling stories. A huge fountain sat in the middle of the square and there were children climbing up along the base or feeding the flock of pigeons that had congregated along the perimeter of the café, hoping for some crumbs. It was a very relaxed and laidback atmosphere.

"Michael, there's a payphone over there!" Sydney pointed and the two of them quickly crossed the square. Vaughn had exchanged some euro notes for coins when he went to go check on their dinner reservations, so he had plenty of change for what was sure to be an expensive long-distance call.

Since it was still mid-morning in L.A., Vaughn was sure that Devlin would be in his office by now. He bypassed the operator and dialed directly through to Devlin's secretary.

"Good morning, Mr. Devlin's office." The perky voice on the other end of the line didn't sound familiar to him. She was probably a fill-in from the secretarial pool.

"This is Agent Michael Vaughn. I need to speak to the Director right away." Vaughn spoke clearly and concisely into the phone.

"Agent Vaughn?" The woman sounded stunned. "Is that really you?"

"Yes, it is really me." Vaughn replied. "Will you please put me through to Devlin?" A hint of impatience crept into his voice.

"I'm sorry, Agent Vaughn." She chirped happily. "It's just that everyone was under the impression that you and Agent Bristow were imprisoned in some unknown location."

"Well, we're not any longer." He said curtly. "Agent Bristow is with me and I need to speak to Devlin now." Didn't this woman understand the urgency of his call?

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Agent Vaughn." She said cheerfully. "He's not here."

"What do you mean he's not there?" Vaughn practically shouted into the phone.

"He left for Washington D.C. yesterday, Agent Vaughn. Top-level meetings and such." The woman explained in an uncertain tone of voice. "I suppose I could try to track him down for you--" She said dubiously.

"No, no, don't do that!" This girl sounded as if she had the IQ of a gnat. She probably wouldn't be able to find Devlin if she had the phone number right in front of her. "What about Agent Weiss? Is he there?"

"No, he's not here, either." The secretary sounded positively gleeful now. "Agent Weiss is on assignment out of the country."

Vaughn swore under his breath. He covered his hand over the receiver and looked at Sydney. "Devlin's in Washington and Weiss is on assignment out of the country. I don't know who else I could talk to."

"What about my father?" Sydney whispered.

Vaughn shook his head. "We don't acknowledge your father's existence to anyone calling from the outside, Sydney, and that includes our own agents. He's a double and obviously, it would be very dangerous for him if someone could just call in and be immediately patched through to him." He told her. "It's the same with you."

She nodded meekly, wondering why she didn't think of that herself. A frustrated Vaughn hung up before Little Mary Sunshine suggested he talk to Agent Haladki.

"Now what?" He queried her, obviously miffed.

"Where did they say Devlin was?"

"Washington D.C." He gave a dismissive shrug. "Meetings of some sort."

"Can we try to contact him there?"

"And get the same sort of runaround we got in L.A.?" Vaughn raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. "I don't even know where he is in Washington and I know that twit who answered the phone wouldn't have a clue." An inspiration suddenly hit him. "Let me try Weiss' cell." He punched in the number while Sydney waited expectantly.

"I'm sorry, the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. If you would like--" Vaughn groaned and hung up the phone rather noisily. "Damn it!"

"What is it?"

"His number's been disconnected." Vaughn shook his head. "He has this thing about constantly switching phone companies in order to get the best deal. Never mind that no one can actually reach him because he keeps changing his goddamned phone number!" His voice rose heatedly.

Sydney laid a soothing hand on his arm. "Michael, how about I try my dad's number?" She suggested mildly. "He's had the same one for ages."

There was a momentary delay as her request was being transferred through phone lines and up to satellites, but then Sydney heard her father's gruff hello and she nearly burst into tears.

"Yes?" Jack's voice came over the line in his familiar clipped manner.

"Daddy?" She gave a little sob.

"Sydney?" Her father gasped. "Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me!" She shouted, barely able to hear him. "Dad, can you hear me? Michael and I are in Rome, Italy!"

"What?" There was a terrible amount of line noise. "Sydney…about to…board…plane!"

"What? Hello? Hello!" There was no reply on the other end of the line and she slammed the phone back onto the hook. "We got disconnected!" Sydney wailed. Having finally achieved contact with someone from her life back home, she was now the one who was all upset.

Sydney immediately redialed, but the phone rang and rang until it finally went into voicemail and she heard the vaguely robotic voice of a woman telling her that the cellular customer was unavailable. All Sydney could do was to leave her father a message telling him that they were in Rome and that she would try back again later if she could. She didn't dare tell him where they were staying because if her father came storming into the hotel to try to find her, Sark would realize that she had somehow managed to contact him and tip him off as to their whereabouts and all of their careful planning would go up in smoke.

"You can try again later, Syd." Vaughn said, much calmer now. "Did he say anything when you told him where we were?"

"No, he was saying something about boarding a plane." Sydney looked piqued. "God, I can't believe this, Michael! In this modern age of technology, don't you think we could at least manage to perfect the simple act of talking to someone on the phone?"

She gave him a desperate look. "What about if we call Headquarters again? Can't we give them our CIA ID numbers to prove who we are?"

"Not good enough." Vaughn shook his head. "Numbers can be hacked."

She pressed her lips together in frustration. "You know what the CIA needs to do?"

Vaughn shot her an amused look. It tickled him when Sydney's hackles were raised. "No, what?"

"They need to ask us all a question to which only we would know the answer." Her brows knit together in a grim line. "You know, like the kind they ask you when you forget a computer password?"

"Like 'What's the name of your pet?'" He grinned.

"What's your favorite color? Who's your favorite sports team? How old were you when you lost your virginity?" She fumed in a loud voice. "That damned employee profile they make you fill out when you join the Agency is already about five hundred pages long." She said exaggeratedly. "Why couldn't they substitute one of those questions with that dumb one about the name of your second-grade teacher?"

Vaughn laughed. God, she was beautiful! A becoming color flushed her cheeks and her brown eyes were fiery and determined. "How about, 'Whom would you most like to kiss at this very moment?'" He gazed at her with an adoring look on his face.

Sydney stared at him in mid-rant. "Michael, why are you not being serious about this?" She demanded. "This is our freedom we're talking about!"

His face softened. "Let's call a time out, Syd." He dragged her away from the phone and around the corner into a deserted alleyway.

"Sweetie, I know it's disheartening, but it's looking more and more likely that things aren't going to work out the way we planned." Vaughn reached up to tuck away a strand of hair that had fallen into her face. "You know what the deal is. If we can't reach someone who will vouch for us, we'll have no chance at all against someone who doesn't know us from Adam."

Sydney let out a frustrated sob. "But I want to go home!" She whined, knowing she sounded like a recalcitrant six-year-old.

"I know, Sydney." He said soothingly. "I do, too, but we just might have to wait until next time."

"Next time!" She exclaimed in such a way that an amused Vaughn imagined her physically restraining herself from stamping her foot like a child who wasn't getting her way. "That means Irina will get what she wants this time!"

"Hey, I'm not crazy about handing over that painting to her myself, but if we do this and we're successful, she'll let us go out again and we'll have another shot at getting away from her." Vaughn traced a finger along her cheek to ease the tight set of her jaw.

Sydney gave him a look of resignation. "Maybe it wasn't meant to be this time."

"Look, we'll try your dad again in a couple of hours." He suggested. "Maybe his plane will have landed by then and we'll get a better connection."

"Okay." She nodded reluctantly.

"In the meantime," Vaughn tried to coax a smile out of her by kissing her softly on her forehead and then on the corner of her mouth. "You and I will have to do our best to eat, drink and be merry." He placed another butterfly kiss along the curve of her cheekbone.

It seemed to do the trick because she had a little smile on her face as he pulled away. "I admit I do want to find out if your restaurant is as good as you've been raving about." A bit of sparkle was back in her eyes.

"Well, then let's go." He planted one more kiss on her irresistibly full lips and then took her hand. "The proof is in the pasta."

To be continued…