Hungry
~Companion piece to Starving~
Rating: PG-13
Distribution: Cover Me; Anywhere else, please ask.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, they belong to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot Productions, etc.
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"You didn't even tell me you were seeing Alice again."
He'd asked what this was really about, and she'd told him something that was not the truth, and they'd ended up arguing about things that didn't matter. That was how arguments went, sometimes. The truth was, of course it was about Alice. It had to be. Sure, she was upset that he hadn't told her about her father, but he'd had his reasons for not telling her. She'd certainly withheld enough from him in the past. She hadn't told him she'd slept with Noah, though she sensed he'd somehow known that, anyway. She hadn't told him she was going after Will in Taipei, and what had he done? He'd come to her on his own, everything in his words and voice saying, "I know you hid this from me, and I hate that you didn't feel you could tell me, but I don't care. I'll help you anyway." The truth was, he'd been there for her many more times than he'd disappointed. Maybe that was why the disappointments hurt so much.
And it wasn't even that he hadn't told her that he was seeing Alice again. He'd certainly tried enough times to explain about her in the past few weeks, and she hadn't wanted to hear it. "She seems nice," she'd said. Well, Alice did seem nice, and in her head, Sydney knew she had no right to be upset that he was seeing her. She and Vaughn had made no promises to each other. He certainly deserved to date a nice girl whose life wasn't at risk every time she saw him. Sydney knew that. But whether it should or not, knowing he was with her hurt. It hurt that he wanted to be with someone else when he could be with her.
Except that he couldn't be with her. Their little dinner date had made that clear enough. But for a short time, it had seemed possible. He'd rationalized that they wouldn't get caught, and the rationalizations had made sense, and besides, he'd asked, wasn't she hungry? They'd made it through dinner, and if it had been a bit awkward, that was to be expected, she supposed. The restaurant owner had offered them a room key, and for one brief, giddy moment, she'd wanted to consider it, and she'd wanted to believe. Believe that they could have dates and sex and everything else that came with a relationship, albeit under less than normal circumstances. Any hope of that had been shattered only moments later, when their date had ended in a flurry of blood and gunfire. It had shaken her, scared her, so much that she'd told Francie that nothing would come of her crush on Michael, that it wasn't worth fantasizing about.
Except it wasn't so easy to stop fantasizing when the reality was Michael, and the reality was wonderful.
And over time she started to wonder again if it was possible. Sure, they'd picked an awful time to go out to dinner. They'd been stupid. But what about all of the meetings and missions they'd had when they hadn't been caught? Didn't those count for anything?
Their date had been a reminder of why they had to be careful. Not a warning that this had to end.
And so, one night she calls him. It has been months since she's called him out of his bed in the middle of the night, and for a brief, stinging moment, she fears she is calling him away from Alice. She can't care about that right now. Now is the time to be selfish.
"You're going to think I'm crazy," she tells him in a rush as she strides into the warehouse. "And, Vaughn, I know we were careless in France. But it doesn't change the way I feel about you."
Those wonderfully expressive green eyes of his flash. Surprise, happiness, wonder. "How do you feel about me, Sydney?"
"I-- I--" She's never allowed herself to think the words, much less say them out loud. "I think I love you, Vaughn."
He doesn't say anything at first, and for a horrible moment she thinks she has misread his feelings for her, that she has made a horrible mistake by telling him this. "Oh my God," she says. "Vaughn, I'm sorry, I know you and Alice--"
And he silences her with a kiss that makes everything okay, a kiss that makes her forget Alice and where she is and her own name.
"Alice and I are friends, Sydney," he says when they part. "Once it was more, but it's not now."
"Oh, Vaughn--"
"And I think I love you, too."
And she clings to him like a life preserver, and she knows they will make this work, that all of the risks they will take will be worth it, because they'll have each other.
And the hockey invitations and conversations about watches and fantasies about what might be will end. Because they have the reality now.
The reality is each other. And the reality is wonderful.