Chapter Two: Just A Game

Sydney stood in her bathroom that night, slipping into her favorite satiny nightgown, the one Michael had given her for their first anniversary. It was beautiful-- sexy, without being sleazy. The man had amazing taste.

He appeared behind her then, moving her hair aside to kiss her neck. "The kids are in bed."

"Good," Sydney said with a nod. "Emily's feeling all right?"

"She's fine, sweetheart."

"What about Jack? Did you check his homework?"

"Yeah." Michael rolled his eyes. "He got all his math problems right, but it took him twice as long as it should have to finish them because he kept asking if he could read his comic book for just a few minutes. I'd say we should tell your mother to stop buying him those things, but then I don't think he'd read at all."

Sydney sighed, running a hand back through her hair as she started back to their bedroom. "What does it matter, Michael?" she asked. "It's not like he's ever going to use his genius IQ to cure cancer or perform brain surgery. He's going to grow up to be just like us, do just what we do."

"Don't say that," Michael said, green eyes full of pain.

"Why not, Michael?" she countered. "It's the truth."

They looked at each other for a long uncomfortable moment. Michael still liked to believe that their eyes were still on the prize, that they would still bring down the Organization one day. Sydney knew better. Sometimes she allowed herself to think that when she had full control, when Irina had retired, she could start using the Organization to do good instead of evil, but really, how and why would she do that? They were making so damned much money now.

And sometimes she thought she could just step down, leave the day to day operations of the Organization to someone else and escape with Michael and the children to a lovely little island somewhere. But Irina would never allow that, and anyway, no one could run the Organization as well as she could. No. Sydney would not have a moment's peace until Jack was ready to take over, and that wouldn't be for another fifteen, twenty years. She was trapped. Period. She supposed she might as well start enjoying the fact that she was good at being the leader of an international crime syndicate, because that was all she was ever going to be.

She turned to Michael then, smiling sadly at him. "You're still the only thing in my life that's real."

"No," he said, moving towards her and putting his hands on her waist. "Our children. We're not exactly hiding anything from them."

"Only because we're raising them in this fucked-up parallel universe where they're taught that the Organization is a wonderful thing," Sydney said, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. Their son attended a school where he and his classmates did not just learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. They were being trained to be employees of the Organization. The ones who weren't so bright would be Sydney and Michael's hired henchmen, and the best and the brightest would run the Organization when the two of them were ready to retire. Jack would run it when they were ready to retire, and not just because he was brilliant. Because he was the son of Sydney and Michael Vaughn, the most powerful leaders the Organization had ever known.

"I know all this, Sydney." The pain in Michael's eyes was practically enough to break her heart. Why was she hurting him like this?

"I know you do," she said, sitting down on the bed with a sigh. "I'm sorry, darling. All of this is just starting to get to me." They'd given Irina the last ten years of their lives. Sydney supposed it had been a fair trade. Thanks to Irina, she'd had the opportunity to be with Michael, to marry him and have his children, to give those children anything they wanted. But at what cost, really?

Michael sat next to her on the bed, placing his hands on her shoulders. "We should take a vacation."

Sydney smiled. "My mother recommended one, actually."

"I really think you could use one," Michael said.

Sydney smiled, resting her head on the shoulder. "What about you, Michael?" she asked tenderly. Time after time, she had to remind herself that this was not just happening to her. She was not the only one under her mother's thumb, not the only one with a sick child, not the only one who had made dozens of choices to get them where they were today.

But so often, that was easy to forget. Especially when it was so easy just to let him hold her, and tell her everything was going to be okay. Because she knew that he honestly thought that it would be.

"You know," she said, bringing up something she'd thought about often lately. "We have enough information to turn my mother in to the US government tomorrow if we wanted to." The only thing was, they were in so deep, she didn't know if they could escape prosecution themselves. And then she and Michael would be sent to prison, someone else would raise their kids, there would be no Organization for Jack to run when he got older, there was no escape, never an escape…

Michael must have been thinking the same thing, because he grew tense beside her. "Do you want to?"

Sydney shrugged. "Not really."

He turned to her and planted a kiss on her forehead. "Maybe we should just go to sleep."

She nodded. It was early, but she was so very, very tired. Who knew, maybe she'd actually be able to get a decent night's sleep for once.

When Sydney had started this, she had thought it was all a game. She'd been willing to play by her mother's rules, as long as she knew she was keeping her own agenda in mind. Yes. This was just a game, that was all it was.

She had just never expected to lose so spectacularly.