Author's Note: Yikes, another extremely long chapter ahead, but it's all about Vaughn (yum!). More from me later.
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"Oh, God." He uttered softly. How many times had he told himself he never wanted to see her again? And how many times did he wish that he could?
Nearly one year ago, Vaughn had returned to L.A. after testifying in Washington full of hope and looking forward to the promise of his future. His goal of destroying SD-6 had been accomplished, his career trajectory was on a tremendous upswing, and most importantly of all, he and Sydney could finally act upon the feelings that had been steadily building between them for the last few years.
Vaughn had been so anxious to see her again that he made sure he was the first one off the plane. He hadn't bothered to check any luggage, so he sailed through the airport and headed straight into a waiting taxi.
For security reasons, Vaughn had the driver drop him off a few blocks away from the lock-up where Sydney was being held as a precautionary measure. He had been told a few days ago that her release was imminent and he wanted to tell her the good news.
It was as if the wind had been knocked out of him when he was told that former Agent Sydney Bristow had been released from custody the day before. She was gone? Vaughn was dumbfounded. Sydney had his cell phone number. Why hadn't she called to tell him that she was a free woman?
Vaughn experienced a brief flash of uneasiness, but he quickly brushed it aside, not wanting to consider the possibilities. There had to be a reasonable explanation, he told himself. He decided to go home to his apartment to check his messages.
Of course, he could have saved himself a few anxiety-inducing moments by calling into his answering machine on his cell phone, but Vaughn had never gotten the hang of the whole "Enter your four-digit passcode and then hit asterisk." Or was it "pound?" In any case, he didn't want to take the chance that he might accidentally erase Sydney's message.
After fumbling with his keys and struggling with the locks in his haste to get inside, Vaughn stumbled into his apartment and made a mad dash to his phone. Thank God, the light was blinking! He pressed the "Play" button.
"You have four new messages." The mechanical-sounding voice told him.
"Hello, this is Dr. Liston's office calling for Mr. Klinghoffer. Can you let him know that his test results are in and we need him to call the office immediately? Thank you!" Whoever the woman was who left him this message ended her call on a rather upbeat note.
Vaughn groaned. "Idiot woman, did you even pick up on the fact that I say my last name in my outgoing message? Does Vaughn sound anything like Klinghoffer?" He hit the "Erase" button rather viciously, hoping that Klinghoffer didn't have a fatal disease or something like that. It would be a pity if he died because of Nurse Perky's incompetence.
The second message was from his mother. "Michael, it's your mother. I've been following this terrible SD-6 story in the news and I'm a bit worried because I can't reach you. You're not involved with this case, are you? Please call me." Vaughn grimaced rather guiltily as he went on to his next message. He had meant to call, but things had gotten so crazy. Not that he could have confirmed or denied his involvement in the SD-6 takedown, anyway, but his mother always fretted whenever the CIA was mentioned in the news. As if he was personally involved in each and every high-profile case that grabbed the headlines. Still, he should take the time to call just to set her mind at ease. But later, after he had listened to all of his messages.
"Hey, Mike, it's Eric. I'm not calling you on your cell phone because it's not a big deal, but I wanted to let you know that you owe me a new bathmat. Donovan puked up his pork and beans all over the rug in my bathroom. Oh, yeah, and did you know Sydney's been released? See you when you get back."
"You're feeding my dog pork and beans?" Vaughn said in disbelief. "If you're doing that, you get what you deserve, pal."
Finally, he could listen to Sydney's message. Only it wasn't Sydney. At least he didn't think it was. It was someone breathing, but not speaking, and it went on for thirty seconds before whoever it was hung up.
Vaughn frowned as he stared at his answering machine with the light that was no longer blinking. That was it?
His mind immediately jumped to wild conclusions. Sloane must have gotten to her somehow, even though he was in federal custody and seemingly powerless. Or perhaps it was one of the members from the crumbling Alliance, seeking their own brand of revenge against the woman who had triggered their downfall.
Even though he'd been flying all night and his suit was looking pretty worse for wear, Vaughn didn't bother to take the time to shower and change before heading to CIA Headquarters. If something had happened to Sydney, someone there would know about it.
Only they didn't. Because nothing had happened to her. Or if it did, no one there had heard anything. Vaughn tried for several hours to get a call through to Jack Bristow only to be repeatedly rebuffed. Sydney's father had been moved to a top-secret location and only those on a need-to-know basis had been informed as to his whereabouts.
"But I don't want to know where he is!" He shouted into the phone. "I only want to ask him about his daughter!"
It was Weiss who had urged Vaughn to get in touch with Will Tippin before he got himself in trouble for insubordination (yelling over the phone to a superior officer was never a good idea). Vaughn acknowledged that it was a worthwhile suggestion, but he was unenthusiastic about making the call. It would be like admitting that Sydney held Will in higher regard than she did him and that was a hard pill to swallow.
Vaughn put off calling Will and left Headquarters for Sydney's apartment instead. It was a route he had traveled frequently during the past few years, although if asked, he would never admit to it. Maybe he would tell her someday how he used to drive by her place late at night just because he had been thinking about her. Then again, maybe he would never tell.
Francie answered his loud, insistent knocking with an annoyed expression on her face. He had a feeling he'd awakened her and felt a pang of remorse for it. Sydney had mentioned to him that Francie spent many late nights at the restaurant and she liked to sleep in on most mornings.
"I'm sorry if I woke you up, Francie, but I'm looking for Sydney." Vaughn said apologetically.
Francie reacted by giving him a suspicious look. "I'm sorry, but how do you know my name?"
Vaughn felt his face grow warm. He and Sydney's best friend had never been formally introduced to one another, even though he knew practically everything about her, thanks to Sydney.
Before he could stammer out an explanation, Francie asked him if he was with the CIA.
"Actually, yes, I am." He nodded. "Sydney--Agent Bristow was released from custody yesterday, but no one knows where she is."
The surprise on Francie's face was evident. "I didn't know she was out."
Vaughn's heart sank. "So you haven't seen her?"
Francie shook her head. "You know, I thought some of her things were missing when I came home last night, but I didn't think anything of it at the time. I just thought that maybe her father had come by while I was at work to take some of Sydney's things to her while she was still being detained."
"What things have gone missing?"
"Well, her laptop is gone. It's usually right there." Francie gestured towards the desk in front of the window. She stepped away from the door to survey the room with a more critical eye. Vaughn took the opportunity to move inside and close the front door. It struck him that this was the first time he'd ever had the opportunity to visit Sydney's apartment and he saw little touches of her personality everywhere. Her home was as warm and attractive and inviting as she was.
"Her portable CD player is missing, too." An uneasy feeling began to build in the pit of Francie's stomach. "Let me go check her room, okay?" She hurried down the hallway and left Vaughn alone in the living room.
Vaughn tried to quell his rising panic, but the fact that someone had come in and burgled Sydney's apartment did not sit well with him. Wasn't that too much of a coincidence, considering that she had seemingly disappeared into thin air? He wondered again about his theory that she had been abducted by one of her enemies. But for what purpose? Morbid as the thought was, if someone wanted to get revenge on her, wouldn't they just put a bullet through her head and be done with it?
Unless perhaps they wanted some information from her. Was the missing laptop a clue? Maybe Sydney had stored confidential files on her computer that only she could access. Maybe the data was volatile enough that someone would want it no matter what the price.
"Some of Sydney's clothes are gone, too." Francie announced, suddenly bursting back into the room.
"How do you know that?" He asked, a bit puzzled. Did she have a photographic memory of Sydney's entire wardrobe?
"We borrow clothes all the time." She explained. "I just did the laundry two days ago and I put the shirt I had worn last week back in her dresser drawer. When I checked just now, it was gone."
Vaughn grimaced. This was not good. This was not good at all.
Vaughn thanked Francie for her time and then made a hasty retreat back to Headquarters. After telling Weiss what he had found out, his friend reiterated that he should contact Will Tippin before he alerted the cavalry in regard to Sydney's disappearance. As much as it pained him to do so, Vaughn reluctantly made the call.
Will picked up on the second ring. "Tippin." He waited for a reply, but none was forthcoming. "Hello?" He said after a long pause.
"Uh, Will, this is Michael." His words came out stiffly and awkwardly. "Vaughn." He added as an afterthought, as if Will needed help from the hundreds of other Michaels he knew.
"Oh, h-hey." Will stammered out. He and Sydney's handler were not exactly friends, but if they passed each other in the halls, they at least nodded hello. Neither of them, however, had ever initiated any personal contact with the other. "Did you mean to call me?" He asked in a confused voice.
"Yes, I did." Vaughn replied. "It concerns Sydney."
When did it not? Will thought to himself, but not in a mean way. He of all people could well understand Vaughn's fascination with her.
"What about her?" Will asked, curious as to why Vaughn would want to talk to him about Sydney.
"I wanted to know if you had heard from her since her release."
"She's out?" Will's stunned reaction sounded genuine, but Vaughn didn't know him well enough to be certain.
"Yes, they let her out yesterday and I haven't been able to figure out where she went afterwards." Vaughn informed him.
"Oh, well, no, I haven't seen her since before she was taken into custody." Will told him. "I couldn't get in to see her because I wasn't involved with the case."
"I see." Vaughn said speculatively. When Will told him that he didn't have a clue as to Sydney's whereabouts, Vaughn had felt a perverse sort of pleasure. While it meant that Sydney might still be in danger from an unknown force, at least he was secure in the knowledge that she didn't trust Will more than she did him.
"Do you think something's happened to her?"
"I don't know." Vaughn admitted. "I can't get in touch with Jack because he's in some top-secret lockdown and when I saw Francie, she didn't know anything, either."
"You talked to Francie?" He was mildly surprised at Vaughn's audacity to approach someone he'd never even met.
"Yeah, about an hour ago." Vaughn didn't care if Will thought he was trying to muscle his way into Sydney's life through her friends.
"I don't like this, Vaughn." Will sounded worried. "Sydney wouldn't just leave us all hanging like this. Not when she knows how worried we would be."
"Those are my thoughts exactly." Vaughn replied quietly.
After talking to Will, Vaughn began an unofficial investigation into Sydney's disappearance. Unofficial because although she was a former high-level agent, she was also now a civilian and using agency resources for personal reasons was generally frowned upon. Nevertheless, he was able to circumvent the system in his tireless attempt to find some ray of hope amidst this nightmare he found himself trapped in.
Vaughn didn't admit it to anyone, not even Weiss, but he felt real fear at the thought of Sydney being in a position where he was powerless to help her. Not that he'd never experienced the feeling before--when something went wrong on one of her missions and he was thousands of miles away from her, he always felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach until he was sure that she'd gotten out safely--but this was different. Even though she was the same person she'd been a week ago, to him, she was no longer Sydney Bristow, Queen of Espionage. He thought of her as more vulnerable now, both physically and emotionally, because she didn't have him or her father or the auspices of the CIA behind her.
Vaughn took to camping out at the office because he didn't want to take the chance of missing a call from the myriad network of contacts he had working on Sydney's case all over the world. He rarely slept and he had to be forced to put something into his stomach. Weiss worried that he was becoming a tad obsessed, but Vaughn waved him off rather angrily. Eric was his friend and he loved the guy, but how could he not understand that he would move heaven and earth in order to find Sydney, hopefully alive and breathing and sporting that high-beam smile he'd grown to love?
Unfortunately for Vaughn, all of his efforts went for naught. One by one, his contacts would check in with nothing to report. His mood became bleaker as each day passed.
Then word came down the pike that Jack Bristow was to be released within the next day or two. Vaughn had gone through slightly illegal channels in order to gain access to the information of when and where Jack's plane would be arriving back in L.A. and in spite of the fact that Jack would probably fix him with one of his patented Jack Bristow glares the moment he laid eyes on him, Vaughn was prepared to meet the plane as soon as it touched down.
On the day of Jack's return, Vaughn was just on his way out the door when Weiss had come running after him.
"Mike! Mike, wait!" His friend caught him just as he was about to enter the elevator that would take him to the underground parking garage.
"What is it, Eric?" Vaughn said impatiently. "You know Jack's plane is arriving soon and I have to be there."
"I know, I know, but we were just told of a change in plans." The expression on Weiss' face was somber.
"Did something happen to the plane?" Vaughn asked, alarmed.
"No, no, it's nothing like that." Weiss shook his head. "Devlin just received a request from Jack for a temporary leave of absence. It seems he wants to take some time off to go visit his daughter." He gave Vaughn an uneasy glance as he prepared for his friend's inevitable blow-up.
Vaughn's green eyes grew stormy. "Jack knows where Sydney is? Are you telling me that she's all right? That I've been going through hell for the past two weeks for nothing!" He was yelling by this time.
"I'm sorry, Mike." Weiss said, feeling inadequate. "I know you've been through the wringer--"
"How could she do this to me?" Vaughn cut him off. "After everything we've been through, she treats me with such complete and utter disregard? As if I never even mattered to her?" He was absolutely livid, pounding on the elevator doors in frustration.
"Mike, there has to be an explanation." Weiss tried to placate him. "You know Sydney wouldn't blow you off like that."
"Do I?" His laugh was ugly. "Do I really know anything about her, Eric? Maybe I just built her up into some messed-up illusion of perfection. My unattainable fantasy woman
whom I could lust over and dream about, but whom I never really had a chance at having." His voice turned bitter.
"Do you really believe that, Mike?" Weiss challenged him. "How can you even question if Sydney ever had any real feelings for you? Are you forgetting that she once condemned a man to death because she was trying to save your life?"
"Oh, right, like that was such a tough decision?" Vaughn sneered. "Hmmm, do I let Sark cold-bloodedly murder the man who killed my fiancée in order to spare the life of my faithful lapdog?"
"Don't belittle the decision she had to make." Weiss chastised him. "Regardless of the fact that it was Sloane she was sacrificing, it's no small thing to know that you're the reason another human being is no longer breathing."
Vaughn could say nothing, but his jaw hardened as a feeling of despair settled into his bones. What had he been doing for the last five years? Even though he knew that the destruction of SD-6 had always been their main priority, it didn't mean that other things weren't just as important. He had always thought that he and Sydney were on the same page, that they both wanted the same happy ending that was finally due to them. Obviously, he had been grossly mistaken.
Weiss kept telling him that he should go after her, give her a chance to explain, but Vaughn steadfastly refused, citing his oh-so-important male pride. Her callous disregard for his feelings was proof enough that she had never felt the same way about him that he did about her. Whereas he wore his heart on his sleeve, Sydney had never been quite as forthcoming with her emotions. She showed a true affection for him, but except for that one perfect moment in Cairo, he might as well have been just another Will Tippin redux to her.
He felt like an idiot, a dupe, a fool and he took out his anger and resentment on anyone who came within two feet of him. The normally courteous Michael Vaughn went on a rampage around the office, chewing out the secretaries, sniping at Weiss, butting heads with Devlin. It didn't help matters when the powers that be showered him with unwanted praise for his fine work as former Agent Sydney Bristow's handler as well as for his pivotal role in taking down SD-6, eventually rewarding him with what they called a well-deserved promotion. Vaughn didn't turn it down, of course, but it rankled him that Sydney was the reason he was moving up within the ranks of the CIA. He didn't want to be indebted to her for anything, least of all his success at the Agency.
Vaughn continued down his path of self-destruction at an alarming pace. His reports were sloppy and habitually late, his interpersonal skills were being called into question as rude and tyrannical and his attitude screamed out for some serious adjusting. If he was aware of his growing ogre-like status amongst his peers, it didn't seem to faze him, perhaps because he was too self-involved in his own troubles to hear the grumbling.
Full of anger and self-pity, Vaughn started to hit the bottle in a rather intense manner. He wasn't normally a heavy drinker--a beer or two with the guys now and then--but he found himself taking to the hard stuff with relative ease. Getting drunk and not being able to feel was the only solution he could come up with that would take away the pain of losing something he had never really had in the first place.
Vaughn's downward spiral came to an abrupt halt when Devlin called him into his office one day to have a serious discussion about the younger agent's rapidly declining work habits. The CIA Director minced no words, telling Vaughn that he was very concerned about the number of complaints he was receiving, not just about the quality of Vaughn's work but also about the shoddy way in which he was treating his co-workers. Devlin further called him on the carpet for the fact that Agents Weiss and Tippin had been doing some serious damage control in an attempt to cover up for Vaughn's inexcusable behavior.
When Devlin told him about Weiss and Will, Vaughn expressed a mild amount of shock. He could understand Weiss helping him out (they were best friends, after all), but Will? How the hell did he get involved?
Over the years, Vaughn and Will had developed a relationship because of Sydney (God, why did everything seem to be about her!), but it was hard to define exactly what it was. They were more than just business colleagues because he knew a lot more about Will's personal life than he should have, but they were not friends because of what Vaughn considered to be their never-mentioned-but-tacitly-understood rivalry for Sydney's affections, romantic or otherwise.
Yet rivals wasn't the correct term, either, because was it really a competition if the prize didn't go home with the victor? He, of course, could not pursue a relationship with Sydney--not if he valued his life--but Will had seemingly been out of the race before even leaving the blocks. Vaughn rather grudgingly admitted that Sydney had never given Will any indication that she wanted anything more from him than what they already had, namely a good friendship that went back more years than Vaughn cared to count.
It did bother him, though, the liberties that Will could take in regard to Sydney. Will could take her out to dinner or to a movie. He could spend the night at her place (on the sofa, of course) if they stayed up late watching videos and he was too tired to drive home. He could be seen with her in someplace as mundane as the supermarket without fear that he might get shot as he exited the automatic sliding glass doors.
Vaughn had never been able to experience that kind of freedom with Sydney and so naturally, he resented Will. But if he had to be honest, he couldn't say he hated the guy. Hell, he couldn't even say he disliked him because the truth was, Will was a nice guy. Under different circumstances (read: no Sydney in the picture), they might even have become friends.
But the fact remained that at this point in time, they weren't friends. So why had Will decided to put himself out on a limb for someone who considered him a nuisance at best and a possible but highly unlikely candidate for Sydney's Significant Other at worst? The question boggled his mind.
Vaughn withstood Devlin's tirade rather stoically, preferring to let the Director think he was meekly acquiescing to his boss' demands as opposed to silently seething inside. Irrational though it may have been, Vaughn put the blame squarely on Sydney's shoulders that he was being forced to sit there and listen to Devlin rant and rave at him. It was a sign of how far he had fallen that he could no longer accept the responsibility for his own actions.
After the meeting with Devlin, Vaughn had headed straight for a nearby bar, intending to drown his sorrows in a nice bottle of scotch. That was where he ran into Alice, who had come in with a bunch of friends to indulge in a little Happy Hour good cheer. He had been well into his third drink when she came sidling up next to him at the bar.
Vaughn was surprised by her rather brazen approach of him, not just because they hadn't seen each other in over five years, but also because she had not taken it well when he told her that it was over between them. He hadn't told her the reason why, of course, because then he would have had to explain about how he and Sydney had met and how they had come to be involved (in a professional sense, of course). Unless you were in a low-level research position like Will's, it was generally frowned upon if a senior agent blabbed to their family and friends what he or she really did for the CIA, so he couldn't exactly tell Alice that he was a CIA case handler for a double agent working for both the CIA and a black ops organization named SD-6. That would raise more questions than Vaughn could readily answer, so he had just left it at the fact that they had grown apart and the feelings they had once shared were no longer there.
But although that was essentially the truth, Vaughn couldn't deny that he still felt a physical attraction to the woman with whom he had once thought he would spend the rest of his life. Alice had always been a strikingly lovely woman and the years that had passed since they had last seen each other had done nothing to diminish her beauty. Her cool blonde good looks were in direct contrast to her sometimes emotionally fragile state, but Vaughn found her need to be taken care of somehow oddly appealing. She was so different from Sydney, whose expressively warm brown eyes always belied a sense of calm strength and confident self-reliance. Sydney would never need me to take care of her, he rather bitterly presumed. What Vaughn didn't realize was that there was a difference between needing and wanting.
When Vaughn looked at the woman standing before him, he was not reminded of Sydney, but it was clear that she still lurked in his subconscious, if his later actions were to be judged. He took Alice back to his apartment that night, not only because he was lonely and wanted someone to share his bed, but also because he wanted to strike back at Sydney for the cruel and callous way in which she had decimated his heart. Alice ended up staying the entire weekend and the only time either of them got out of bed was to answer the door for the take-out delivery guy.
Almost without him realizing it, Alice began to insinuate herself back into his life. Although she preferred to be coddled and pampered, there was nothing she liked more than a challenge and to her, his sorry existence was just crying out for her guidance. If Vaughn had been his normal self, he would have balked at Alice's attempt to mold him into what she wanted him to be, but in his present condition, he didn't have the will or the inclination to fight her. He actually tried to tell himself that maybe she was exactly what he needed at this time when he was feeling so lost and adrift. After all, she did manage to convince him to stop drinking so heavily and to take advantage of the incredible opportunity his recent promotion had afforded him.
In the weeks that followed, Vaughn managed to put back together some of the broken pieces of his life. His work ethic improved, his demeanor was no longer as surly and he had actually cut down on thinking about Sydney to perhaps five times a day as opposed to the usual every minute of every hour he'd been working on previously. Most of the time, he cursed the very air she breathed, but then there were moments when he would sadly reflect on what might have been.
Vaughn and Alice had been back together for about three months when she started dropping hints about "making a commitment," which he took to mean, "getting married."
Vaughn wasn't opposed to the idea of marriage. Under different circumstances…with the right person…no, don't go there. In any case, he was more indifferent than anything else to the thought of him and Alice and wedded bliss. He wouldn't have minded if they'd just kept things as status quo between them, but he could understand her desire to move forward with their relationship. After all, they had been going out for two years before their break-up, so it wasn't as if the topic had never come up before. So what if they'd had a five-year break? What mattered now was that the spark between them had been rekindled and was seemingly stronger than ever.
So while the idea to propose to Alice wasn't exactly his own, he found himself feeling not completely abhorrent to the notion, either.
It was true that his feelings for Alice didn't measure up to what he had felt for Sydney. He believed a person had only one great love in his life and he had already found and lost her.
But he respected Alice and he was grateful to her for getting him back on track. They were compatible as a couple (as long as he did what she said), their sex life was good if not spectacular and it was probably time that he got married, anyway, after spending a good chunk of his thirties behaving like a lovesick schoolboy. He wanted kids and a house and maybe even a minivan, although he promised himself he would never be caught dead actually driving it (hey, his government-issued Buick was bad enough). The point was that he wasn't getting any younger and if he wanted to still have all of his hair by the time his kid graduated from high school, he had to start getting a move on.
Vaughn planned to propose to Alice on Christmas Day. He was spending it with her family that year since his mother was in France visiting her sister for the holidays. He knew Alice would be thrilled at the idea of him proposing to her with all of her relatives gathered around her as a captive audience since she was the type who loved to be the center of attention. While it was more of a spectacle than he would have liked, he also knew it would make her happy, so he made himself go through with it. He owed her that much after everything she had done for him.
When Vaughn got down on one knee and presented Alice with the engagement ring he had picked out, she went through the entire gamut of appropriate reactions. She squealed delightedly and cried real tears and then beamed proudly as her family oohed and ahhed over her shiny new bauble. He watched her as she flitted around the room, unable to shake the feeling that a lot of her histrionics was just an act for her visiting relatives, who were fawning all over her as if she'd just been crowned the Queen of England. Cynical of him maybe, but he'd had a lot of practice during his time spent wallowing in self-pity over Sydney.
And damned if Alice didn't prove him right. Privately, when they were alone, Alice had admitted that she'd gone a little over-the-top, but only because she wanted a particular female cousin--one with whom she'd never gotten along--to go green with envy over her impending nuptials. Vaughn had given her a disapproving look to which she responded with a remorseful one of her own. He let her get away with her pettiness, convincing himself that it was okay to do so because he was in love with her. That same misguided reasoning was also his rationale for when Alice very meekly and very prettily asked if she could exchange the ring he had given her for one more to her taste.
"Not that it isn't a lovely choice, Michael, but I've always had my heart set on a very specific style for my engagement ring." She said with a sweet smile. "After all, I am going to be wearing it for the rest of my life."
Alice's idea of "a very specific style" meant the larger, more expensive emerald-cut diamond that currently adorned her left hand, but Vaughn had relented because it made her happy. He owed her so much, after all.
When he broke the news of his engagement to his friends, their reactions varied. Weiss had actually offered him condolences by way of a joke before giving him a halfhearted congratulatory slap on the back. Vaughn knew that Weiss thought it was too soon, that he was still on the rebound from the dreaded S-word (Vaughn staunchly prohibited them from ever speaking about her), but he was determined to prove his friend wrong.
While Vaughn had expected Weiss' rather lackluster hurrah (Eric and Alice couldn't stand each other much to Vaughn's dismay), it surprised him that Will was also not too enthused about his engagement. Was it too much to ask that at least one of his friends be happy for him?
Yes, (and it was still quite shocking even to him), Will Tippin had become one of Vaughn's friends.
After Vaughn learned that Will had stuck his neck out for him when he was going through his "Dark Period" at work, he rather grudgingly made the effort to give the man his due. Will had accepted his thanks in his own humble way and after a few awkward moments, they started down a tentative path towards friendship. Since Sydney was a definite non-topic of conversation, Vaughn and Will found other things over which to form a bond and they were both surprised to discover that they actually had some common interests that had nothing to do with Sydney Bristow. As a gesture of goodwill, Vaughn later invited Will to go to a hockey game with him and Weiss and they had such a good time that Vaughn actually began to regret that he had been so standoffish with Will for the past five years.
He tried not to think too much about the fact that his newfound friendship with Will could be construed as just a roundabout way of keeping Sydney in his life. Not everything had to revolve around her, Vaughn would tell himself. He was friends with Will because he was a good guy, not because he thought he might catch Will talking to Sydney on the phone as he went by Will's office to collect him for their usual Monday Night Football beer-and-nachos at the nearby sports bar. Vaughn conveniently let himself forget that Will was the same person he'd never given the time of day to when Sydney was still around.
The look on Will's face was one of shock when Vaughn told him that he'd asked Alice to marry him. He'd already given Will the sketchy details of his previous relationship with Alice, but not the reason for their break-up, so Will didn't have the preconceived notions about Alice that Weiss did. Yet he reacted to the news in almost exactly the same manner. His friends both questioned him if he was sure he was doing the right thing.
"I thought you liked Alice, Will." Vaughn had said, in a somewhat wounded tone.
"Oh, it's nothing against Alice." Will hastened to reassure his friend. "It's just so sudden. I mean, you just got back together three months ago."
"Yeah, but we were going out for two years before we broke up." Vaughn pointed out. "It's not as if I'm marrying someone I just met a week ago."
"I know." Will still seemed agitated. "Listen, Mike, I know you don't like to talk about her, but what about Sy--"
"Don't say her name." Vaughn cut him off abruptly.
"See, man, this is proof that she still gets to you if you can't even bear to hear her name." Will frowned. "Do you really think you should be marrying Alice when you still have all these unresolved feelings for someone else?"
"They're not 'unresolved.'" Vaughn said coldly. "Whatever feelings I might have had for Sy--her died when she blew me off without a second thought. I don't need a piano to fall on my head to know when I'm not wanted."
Now here he was, six months later and on the verge of his wedding, and Vaughn found himself clenching his fist as he struggled to keep the emotions inside of him from boiling over. Why was she here? How had she found out about his wedding? For one brief moment, a feeling of pure, unadulterated hope sprang from within him as he wondered if she had come to stop him. Did that mean…but then an unfamiliar bitterness wrapped itself around his heart as he told himself that Sydney was sadly mistaken if she thought he'd once again be her willing little lap dog. Those days were over thanks to her own doing and he wasn't going to let her mess up his life again. Now that he finally had things back under control, she wasn't going to knock him off-balance with her weepy eyes and her trembling mouth.
"What are you doing here?" He sounded much harsher than he had intended but that was probably a good thing. He couldn't help but notice that her skin looked like polished alabaster in the moonlight.
Sydney was a little taken aback by his tone. While she didn't think he would welcome her back with open arms, she also didn't think he would be so cold and abrupt with her, either.
"I-I don't know." She said lamely.
"Come on, Sydney, can't you come up with a better answer than that?" Vaughn mocked her. "I would have expected more out of such a dramatic entrance."
She flinched at his biting tone. If she had entertained even the slightest hope that it had been Vaughn who had sent her the wedding invitation, it was obvious now that she had been deluding herself. He sounded extremely upset that she was here and it pained her to realize that he was probably more concerned about Alice's feelings than her own.
"I came back to visit Will." Sydney replied, a bit defensively. Well, that was sort of the truth. She didn't have to tell him the reason for the visit.
"You expect me to believe that after a year away from L.A., you just happened to show up in town on the very weekend I'm getting married?" He looked skeptical.
"How was I supposed to know you were getting married this weekend?" She countered, a bit miffed at his tone in spite of herself. "I wasn't exactly on the guest list now, was I?"
"It would have been a waste of a stamp." Vaughn sneered.
"Are you saying I wouldn't have had the guts to show up?" Her voice was steely.
"No, I'm saying you wouldn't have cared enough to show up." He replied, his eyes narrowed. Damn it, why did she still have the ability to make his heart catch in his throat?
"Vaughn, I can't believe you would think that I don't care." Sydney said slowly.
"Oh, am I wrong? Am I supposed to believe that you actually do give a damn about me?" He asked ironically. "Quite frankly, I find that a totally laughable assumption on my part."
Sydney stared at him. This bitter, cynical man wasn't the same man she had left a year ago. Oh, God, did I do this? Am I to blame for his complete 180-degree personality change? A dull ache began to build within her chest. Heartfelt apologies simply weren't going to cut it with him.
"Vaughn, please don't act this way." A pleading note crept into her voice. "I--"
"Do you have to keep calling me by my last name?" He rudely interrupted her. "We're no longer business colleagues, Sydney, and this is a social function where it's not a common practice to refer to people by their last names."
His rebuke stung, especially in the ugliness of its tone. "I-I'm sorry." She choked out the words. "I never realized it bothered you so much."
"It's just so damned impersonal." He grumbled. "But then maybe that's the way you wanted it, huh? It always bugged me that I called you Sydney, but you never called me Michael. I guess it was your way of keeping me at arm's length, so I couldn't get the wrong idea that maybe we were something more than just two people doing a job."
He had guessed her intentions correctly, but it wasn't for the reason he thought. She had called him by his last name from the start and to change in midstream would have raised eyebrows. It would have given him and perhaps others a signal that her feelings had changed, that she wanted to have a more intimate connection with him. Revealing herself like that wasn't something she'd wanted to do, so instead she'd just kept things the way they always had been.
"I always liked that you called me Sydney." She said in a small voice. "It makes you a heck of a lot braver than I ever was."
Vaughn didn't know how to respond to that. "So are you going to tell me why you're here?" He asked after a long pause.
Sydney hesitated. She could feel the hostility emanating from him and she knew it wasn't going to be easy to get him to listen to her. "I lied to you just now." She finally confessed.
"What, you mean about the part where you said you cared about me?" Vaughn said derisively.
"No." She growled at him. "I was talking about not knowing that you were getting married this weekend."
"Oh." He said shortly.
"When I found out, I knew I had to come see you." She said haltingly.
"You could have just sent a congratulatory card." He drawled.
God, he was going to make this as difficult as he possibly could. "No, actually, I thought I owed you more than that." Her tone was cool.
"Oh, that's rich coming from you, Sydney." Vaughn let out a sarcastic laugh. "The fact that you think you owe me something."
She gave him a bewildered look. "Why is that so hard to believe? It's because of you that I'm still alive and in one piece, Va--Michael." Her face turned red at her slip-up.
"And so are you repaying me by deigning to come down from your lofty perch, Sydney?" He raised an eyebrow. "Should I be flattered that my wedding is the reason you finally came back to L.A.?"
She swallowed hard. "You're mad because I never came back after I was released from federal custody."
"Gee, what was your first clue?" was his sarcastic return.
She doggedly tried again. "Michael, I understand why you'd be upset with me--"
He cut her off yet again. "Oh, wow, thanks, Syd, that's so big of you."
Sydney finally had to let out a frustrated sigh. "How can I apologize for my behavior if you don't stuff it with the sarcastic remarks?" Her voice turned shrill.
"Do you think that will make it all better?" He asked tauntingly. "A heartfelt apology, a few well-timed tears, maybe a calculated hair-tucking behind your ears and you'll have good old Vaughn eating out of your hand again, is that it?" He ignored the lurch of his heart as he caught the hurt, indignant look on her face and continued on. "Newsflash, Syd, I don't have to make it easy for you."
"I'm not saying you do." She said through clenched teeth. "But can't we at least try to be civil to one another?"
"Civil?" Vaughn repeated, a hard look in his eyes. "Interesting concept." His voice turned cold. "How civil was it for you to flat-out disappear from my life without a second thought as to what that would do to me?"
His words hit her as hard as if she'd been kicked in the stomach. "Michael…"
But he wouldn't let her explain. Not yet. Not when he still had a year's worth of anger inside of him. "Sydney, do you know what I went through those five years we worked together?" His voice was deathly quiet. "Every morning I would wake up and wonder if today was the day that your cover would be blown at SD-6. That somehow Sloane had found out you were a double and he was sending a hit squad to your apartment at that very moment. Of course, I could never call you to make sure you were all right, so I had to go to the office, all the while praying that there wouldn't be a message for me saying that something had happened to you."
"And those were the good days. Because at least I knew that you were close. That I could get to you if you needed me." Vaughn looked away from her as his voice caught.
Sydney's throat tightened as she felt her eyes begin to tear. She knew it would hurt to listen to him as he castigated her, but it had to be done. She had wounded him so deeply and maybe the only way he could forgive her was to let it all out of his system before it ate him up inside.
"I think I did a pretty good job of hiding it, but every time you left to go on a mission, I was a nervous wreck." A muscle in his jaw clenched. "It's not that I ever questioned your competence as an agent, but you and I both know that things don't always go exactly as planned."
"It's the nature of the business." She commented softly.
"Yeah." Vaughn agreed in a clipped manner. "It's also the nature of the business that a handler is not supposed to become emotionally attached to his agent."
Sydney stifled a groan. That phrase would haunt her for the rest of her life. "Well, I hope you'll pardon me for saying so, but I'm glad that was one rule you didn't follow." She said boldly.
He gave her a long look. "Did you ever play a game called 'Keep Away' when you were a kid, Sydney?"
His non sequitur threw her. "What?" She asked with a puzzled expression on her face.
"'Keep Away.' I'm not sure if you're supposed to play with a ball, but we played with a frisbee." Vaughn's expression was very serious, as if he were explaining a nuclear peace treaty to her. "The object of the game is to keep the frisbee just out of reach of the other kids' outstretched hands."
"Are you comparing me to a frisbee?" Sydney didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"It's a simplistic analogy, I know, but the principle still applies. You dangle something tantalizingly close to someone and they can't help but try to jump for it." He met her gaze head-on. "That's how I felt with you. You were there right in front of me, this wounded bird who had the amazing ability to be so tough and so fragile at the same time. How could I help but want to reach out to you?"
"But look where that got me?" Vaughn's voice turned hollow. "I spent five years trying to hold on to you only to realize that you were never in my grasp at all."
Her heart felt as if it were breaking in two. "No, Michael, that's not true." She attempted to reach out to him, but he stepped back and she visibly cringed.
He went on as if he hadn't heard her. "All that time, I thought that you and I…that we…but we weren't. It was all just wishful thinking." Vaughn's beautiful green eyes clouded over. "The truth is that I was just the sap who got easily played by a pair of big brown eyes and a high-beam smile." The hard edge to his voice cut into her like a knife.
"Are you implying that I used you because I knew I could?" Anger began to bubble inside of her. "That I played off of the feelings I knew you had for me just so that I could get you to do my bidding?"
Sydney could take the rudeness and the sarcasm from him; her past misdeeds had made him this way and she probably deserved to feel the wrath of what she had wrought. But for Vaughn to see deceitfulness where there was none to be had hurt her more than the barbed insults ever could. He thought she was a fraud and a user and a liar. What could be worse than hearing that come out of the mouth from the man you loved?
"Maybe you didn't do it consciously, but you have to admit that you gave just enough to keep me interested." His lip curled. "Good old dependable Vaughn. He'll follow me to hell and back like an obedient little puppy dog just as long as I throw him a bone from time to time." He met Sydney's glare with a defiant one of his own.
"A flirtatious smile here or a timid little embrace there." Vaughn's eyes grew cold. "Oh, and when he actually risks his life to save mine, I'll reward him with an extra-special something like what happened in Cairo." His voice was full of contempt.
"How can you even think that Cairo didn't mean anything to me?" Sydney found herself literally shaking. "That you didn't mean anything to me?"
"Right, Syd, and this is how you treat the people who mean something to you." He said disparagingly. "Excuse me if I think your dry cleaner means more to you than I do. After all, he's the one who made all of your costumes so nice and pretty for you after every mission." His eyes narrowed.
"Screw you, Vaughn." Sydney flared at him, too upset to even realize that she'd used his last name. "How could I have ever thought that you were the one person in the entire world who knew the real me?" Angry tears filled her eyes.
"Whether you believe it or not, you were the only person in my life who I never lied to. I never had to and I never wanted to." Her voice cracked and he winced when he heard it. "And now you have the audacity to stand here and say that I was using you? That you were just a means to an end?"
"If you really think I am that cold and that calculating, then you don't know me at all." Sydney said in a dangerously low voice. "And I guess that means I never really knew you, either." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "The joke's on me, huh? The man I thought of as my guardian angel is really just a mere mortal."
"I'm not a perfect man, Sydney. No one is." Vaughn said quietly. "You can't fault me for being resentful that you screwed me over."
"I don't fault you for anything." She said tightly. "I can deal with the fact that you're mad at me. I know that some of the things I did--or didn't do--hurt you and I'm truly sorry for any pain I might have caused you."
"But you can't honestly stand there and tell me that you have doubts about whether or not I ever had any real feelings for you." Sydney gave him a searching look, but Vaughn wouldn't meet her gaze.
"You told me that you used to wake up worrying about me." Sydney was speaking so softly, Vaughn had to lean closer to hear her. In doing so, he caught a whiff of her perfume and it made his traitorous heart beat faster. "I used to wake up wondering if it was worth getting out of bed. If I just stayed there, I wouldn't have to deal with Sloane or Kendall or the fact that I led this insane life as a double agent."
"But then I would start to think about everything I'd miss if I just pulled the covers up over my head." Sydney's lips curved into a little smile. "Either some crazy story about Francie's latest restaurant mishap or one of Marshall's ramblings about some super high-tech yo-yo that could kill a man at twenty feet."
"And I'd also miss out on seeing you." She was gazing at him so intently that he felt powerless to look away. "All the times I felt like giving up, I only had to think about you and tell myself that there actually was a good reason why I kept putting myself in the line of fire."
"It was always about you, Michael." Her voice broke and they both noticed. "Maybe I was a little slower on the uptake than you were, but I felt it."
Vaughn stared at her for a long moment. "I don't know what to believe about you anymore, Sydney." Was it her imagination or did he sound less hostile now? "You say your feelings were real, but why did I always feel as if you were holding back somehow?"
"What did you want me to do?" She cried out in frustration. "Throw myself at you every time we met at the warehouse? Wear skirts slit up to my thigh and sexy little screw-me stilettos?"
"If I never made my feelings clear, it was only because I'm not a masochist." She said frankly. "Wanting what I couldn't have. Looking but not touching." Sydney shook her head. "I didn't need that kind of pain and suffering."
The look on his face was stoic. "So was Cairo just an aberration?"
His mention of Cairo stunned her. "What do you mean?'
"Well, you broke your own rules, didn't you?" Vaughn raised an inquiring eyebrow. "We looked." A muscle in his jaw twitched. "And touched."
"Cairo was…" She closed her eyes, remembering. "…a revelation." A look of surprise crossed Vaughn's face.
"It's amazing how one moment can encompass both ends of the spectrum." Sydney was choosing her words carefully. "In one instant, I was flying as high as a kite and in the next, I was six feet under."
"Do you know how torturous Cairo was for me?" Her lip trembled. "I had a brief glimpse of what it could be like for us and I wanted it so badly I could taste it."
"But if we'd given in to our feelings that night, do you really think we'd be alive today?" She questioned him. "Love makes you giddy, Michael, and giddiness leads to mistakes. The one time you forget to look over your shoulder and it was a sure bet someone would wind up dead." Sydney and Vaughn exchanged sober glances.
"I've already lost someone because I was weak." Sydney pointed out to him. "No matter how much you've tried to convince me otherwise, it was my fault that Danny was killed and I have to live with that for the rest of my life."
"I knew I couldn't go through that again, Michael." She gave him an imploring look. "If anything happened to you because of something I did, it would have destroyed me."
Vaughn struggled to remain unmoved. "Fine, I can accept that excuse while we were still working undercover together." His tone was brusque.
"But what about the year that's passed since?" His eyes narrowed. "Can you make a pretty little speech about that?"
"No," She admitted abruptly, which surprised the hell out of him. "But if you'd just let me explain…there were reasons--"
Vaughn held up his hands to stop her from speaking. "I don't want to hear them." Being in such close proximity to her, Vaughn could feel himself falling under her spell again and he was trying desperately to fight it. He would not allow himself to be hurt by Sydney again and he knew that would happen if he let her get too close. If he wanted to save what little sanity he had left, he had to push her away.
"You don't?" She sputtered.
"It won't make any difference, Sydney." He shook his head. "It won't change what's already happened."
"But, Michael, it would help you to understand why it happened." Sydney heard the pleading note in her voice and she didn't care if it made her sound needy and weak.
"Did it ever cross your mind that maybe I don't want to understand?" Vaughn shot back with a touch of irritation. Good, she looked as if she'd just had the rug pulled out from under her. "My priorities have changed in the year you've been away, Sydney. You're no longer the end all and be all of my existence."
"You have no idea how difficult it was for me to recover from what you did to me. But I got help from people who really cared about me and I managed to get my life back together." He fixed her with a stony gaze. "I don't want to get sucked into your world again, Sydney. The pain you cause is just not worth it."
Sydney flinched as if he'd physically struck her. "I didn't realize you considered me so toxic." Her tone was wounded.
"Well, you are, Sydney." He retorted callously. "You're bad for my health. When I get around you for any length of time, you consume my whole being. You get under my skin and in my head and--"
"And what about your heart, Michael?" Sydney interrupted him. "Am I in your heart as well?"
"I'm not answering that." His profile was like granite.
"Is it because you're afraid of admitting that you still have feelings for me?" She needled him. "Or is it because you know you'll never feel the same way about Alice?"
"Don't bring her into this." Vaughn said warningly.
"She already is." Sydney snapped. "Do you love her, Michael?" She asked bluntly.
"Alice will make me a good wife." That sounded like the stock answer he gave everyone.
"That's not an answer to my question." She would make him admit it or die trying. "Do you love her?" She persisted.
Before Vaughn could reply, they heard the sound of a throat clearing behind them. "Michael, honey, you're ignoring our guests." Alice's tone was plaintive.
Sydney closed her eyes in frustration. Damn that woman's lousy timing!
"I'm sorry, sweetheart." Vaughn brushed past Sydney and went over to his fiancée to place a kiss on her cheek. "I'll go inside right now and make the rounds." He stepped back inside without a backwards glance.
Sydney took a few moments to collect herself. She inhaled several deep breaths of the salty sea air, trying to convince herself that all was not lost. Even though he didn't want to admit it, Vaughn still had feelings for her. Whether they were of love or hatred, she wasn't quite sure, but they always said that there was a fine line between the two extremes. She just had to figure out which way the balance had tipped.
As Sydney turned to head back into the party, she was startled to discover that Alice was behind her, still standing outside on the deck. She met Alice's glare with a rather obstinate one of her own and waited for Alice to speak.
"Sydney, you and I need to talk."
Author's Note: First off, I hope it doesn't seem repetitive that I keep mentioning things you've already heard about in previous chapters, but what I'm trying to show is each character's perspective of the same events and then expand on it. I don't know if it's working, but that's my intent.
Also, in response to some of your reviews, there will be more stuff coming out about Sydney's mysterious disappearance during the previous summer as well as a little tidbit about what really happened in Cairo. I do have the general plotline mapped out and I hope all of your questions get answered eventually.
Lastly, I just wanted to thank all of you for your words of encouragement. I thought I had a good idea for a story, but I honestly didn't expect such a great response. Special thanks go out to Hillary at Cover Me for her fic recommendation. That really was a wonderful surprise.