Author's Note: In honor of tonight's episode, which I am so dying to see, here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy!
One scene in this chapter is R-rated. Please read at your own discretion or skip it if it offends you.
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Vaughn stood about ten feet away from her, far enough that Sydney had to raise her voice in order to be heard yet close enough that she could still feel the aura of his pain and bewilderment as it surrounded them both like a noxious puff of smoke. It made her ache inside to know that she had caused him so much anguish when he was the last person in the world that she ever wanted to hurt.
As they silently contemplated each other's presence, neither of them could deny what had brought them to this point in time. As hard as he had tried to fight it, Vaughn was inexplicably drawn to Sydney, his desire for her overriding what little common sense he had left. His head kept telling him to stay as far away from her as he could, but his heart refused to listen. There's a reason Sydney is here. Are you man enough to face up to it?
Sydney's breath quickened as she saw Vaughn's gaze sweep over her. His deep-seated anger towards her had done nothing to diminish her powerful attraction to him and even now she could feel herself longing to be close to him, to have him take her in his arms and stroke her hair and whisper that he loved her. But as it was--with him standing there looking so cold and aloof--she would probably have to settle for their last moment together to end in a war of harsh words and wounded feelings.
"What am I doing here?" Vaughn repeated in a quizzical tone as if he wasn't quite sure how to respond. "I was just about to ask you the same question." He said by way of a stalling tactic.
He caught her off-guard with his mild-mannered demeanor. After last night, she had expected to be on the receiving end of barely disguised hostility once again and it threw her when she didn't get it.
"I-I was here first." Sydney stammered out, sounding rather juvenile in tone. "You're the one invading my space."
"I was down at the pool when I saw you take off." Vaughn's candor surprised her. "You looked upset."
"And that concerns you how?" She inquired sharply. Her emotions were still a bit raw from the previous evening's tirade and combined with Alice's ragging on her during lunch, Sydney's attitude came across as slightly belligerent. "You made it perfectly clear to me last night that my feelings mean nothing to you."
Vaughn's face flushed. "I-I…was…in shock when I saw you." He stumbled over his words. "Some of the things I said may not have been a true reflection of my feelings."
"Oh, I kind of think they were." Her tone was rueful. "You've had a whole year to figure out what you wanted to say to me when we saw each other again and I think you accomplished your task quite eloquently." Sarcasm tinged her statement.
"Syd, let's not fight, okay?" He tried to placate her. "That's not why I followed you down here."
"Speaking of which, you still haven't explained that."
"I guess it's an old habit I still haven't been able to break." Vaughn replied, a bit testily. "When I see that you're upset, I immediately go into fix-it mode."
His sober response caused Sydney to lose just a touch of her bravado. Of course, it didn't stop her from coming back with an acerbic retort. "Well, let me help you out by saying that it's no longer in your job description to provide solace for your frequently overwrought, over-emotional agent."
"You, Syd? Over-emotional?" His smartass tone made Sydney look up in surprise and for a moment, she almost thought she saw him trying to keep a straight face. A ray of hope pierced through the bleakness in her heart, causing her to wonder if there was still a glimmer of a chance for them.
"So why did you look so lost in thought just now?" He asked, sounding curious rather than curt. "You didn't even hear me come in until I was practically right behind you."
Sydney's mouth quirked as she pondered whether he could handle the truth. "To be perfectly honest with you, I was thinking about Cairo." She replied with an air of insolence.
His green eyes flickered briefly. "Don't try to manipulate me by bringing that up."
"I'm not." Her voice was indignant. "You asked me a question. I answered it."
Even though they were miles away and many months past, Vaughn could still remember that hot, steamy evening as if it were yesterday. It was a memory he had replayed over and over in his mind, probably too many times than was healthy for him.
The air had been oppressively hot and humid as he and Sydney had acted out their little mating dance, but he had not even been aware of it, so engrossed was he in everything that had to do with her. He could still picture her so clearly, her slim figure clad in that drab little gray smock, but still managing to look sexy as hell. The look in her warm brown eyes had been trusting and inviting, as if she were telling him that she had wanted it to happen, too.
A feeling of pure joy had flooded his entire being when he kissed Sydney for that first time; it was as if everything had suddenly fallen into place and they were where they were always meant to be. Somewhere in the back recesses of his mind, Vaughn knew that he would probably never be able to ascend to that level of euphoria ever again, no matter if he and Alice spent the next fifty years together as man and wife.
The sound of Sydney's voice made Vaughn drag himself back to the present. "I'm sorry. What were you saying?" His face felt warm and he was glad Sydney could not read his thoughts.
"I was asking you why King Tut is the only horse in this stable." She said patiently
"King Tut?" He repeated in a confused manner and then he suddenly got the connection. "Is that why--oh." He became flustered when he realized she had been telling the truth about Cairo. "These are…um…the old stables. All of the other horses have been moved to the new one, but he prefers it here. Tut's an old guy, anyway, so Alice's mother just lets him do what he wants." He explained.
"I see." Sydney suddenly felt self-conscious under Vaughn's gaze and nervously pushed a lock of her hair back behind her ear. Her reflexive gesture did not go unnoticed by Vaughn.
"You know, Alice is uncomfortable with your being here." He made the comment just to say something.
She gave him a look that said, "And I should care why?"
"Syd," Vaughn chastised her in a mild tone. "It's her wedding. She just wants everything to be perfect."
"Everyone seems to be having a good time."
"They are, but she's not. It's not easy to have your fiancé's ex--" He suddenly stopped short. He couldn't exactly call Sydney an "ex." To do so would imply that she had ever been a "current," which she most certainly never was. In any case, his pause became too pregnant to ignore and she pounced.
"Her fiancé's what?" Sydney threw back at him. "Her fiancé's ex-agent? Ex-colleague? Ex-co-worker? Whatever we were was never truly defined."
"That's because you and I were only dealing in possibilities, not realities." Vaughn's reply held a touch of sadness. "There was never anything about us to define."
Sydney's temper flared up. "How can you say that?" She burst out. They may not have acknowledged their affinity for each other with heartfelt declarations of love and commitment, but he couldn't say that the bond between them had been completely non-existent. "You can't deny that we had something between us, Michael. We just never got the chance to figure out what that was."
"And whose fault was that?" He muttered under his breath, too low for her to hear. "Sydney, why are you here?" His tone was blunt.
"Why do you keep asking me that?" She countered, a bit heatedly. "Can't a girl go off by herself without someone making a federal case out of it?"
"I don't mean here in the stables." Vaughn said evenly. "I mean here at a party my fiancée and I are hosting on the day before our wedding."
Sydney winced. My fiancée. Our wedding. Hearing those words come out of his mouth was like being stabbed in the heart with a dull blade. "Will's invitation said he could bring a guest." She replied, struggling to maintain her dignity. "I'm his guest."
Vaughn felt a twinge in spite of himself. Sydney and Will had looked awfully friendly last night at the cocktail party and they were both currently unattached at the moment. He knew that weddings were seen as prime occasions for hooking up with someone--either with a person you just met or with an old friend. Was either one of them hoping that being together in an environment supposedly filled with love and hope and wedded bliss would generate some romantic sparks of their own?
A muscle in his jaw twitched. No matter that Will was his friend, Vaughn still didn't want him to be with Sydney. Of course, he wouldn't let himself explore the reasons why. To do that would force him to examine his own feelings of jealousy and longing and regret and he wasn't so sure he was strong enough to do that. He didn't want his life to go spiraling out of his control again and he was afraid there was a good chance of that happening if he let himself get caught up in his yearning for a woman who had hurt him so deeply.
"Did Will invite you to the wedding? Is that how you found out about me and Alice?" Vaughn looked perturbed. Even though they had only recently become close in the last year, he had thought that his friendship with Will was pretty solid. He didn't want to believe that Will was trying to stir up trouble for him in an unconscious effort to get back at Vaughn for 'taking' Sydney away from him all those years ago. It was a pointless exercise, anyway, because Sydney had never really been either of theirs for the 'taking.'
"No." Sydney looked up at him. "It was my own decision to come back here."
"So if Will didn't tell you, who did?" He persisted. "I know that Francie didn't even have a clue that you and I knew each other and Eric knows I would've killed him if he'd stuck his big nose into my business, so I can't imagine how you found out."
"Three days ago, an invitation to your wedding appeared in my mailbox." Her gaze never left his face. "That was my cue to pack a bag and come down here."
Vaughn looked stunned. "Who would send you an invitation to my wedding?"
"I don't know." She shook her head. "I've been trying to figure that out myself."
"Well, it wasn't me." He said unnecessarily.
"Oh, I'm well aware of that." Sydney gave him a pointed look and he felt his face flush.
"Well, somebody wanted you here." Vaughn was disturbed that some unknown force was trying to play puppetmaster with their lives. "Frankly, I'm surprised you even bothered." The old hurt he was nursing made a sudden reappearance.
"Are we going to go through that again?" She asked with a hint of impatience. "I don't want to fight with you, either, Michael. Not when there are other more important subjects that we need to talk about."
"I don't know what more we have to say to each other, Sydney." Vaughn looked at her, his forehead wrinkling as he frowned. "You know that old saying, 'Actions speak louder than words?' Well, yours said more than I ever wanted to hear."
His face suddenly closed off and he started to back away from her. "This was a mistake, coming after you like this. I shouldn't have--I don't know why…" Vaughn held a hand out as if to ward off an evil spirit before abruptly turning on his heel, kicking up a little dust cloud as he did so.
Even though she was standing in a shaft of sunlight streaming in through one of the skylights, Sydney felt her body go ice-cold. "No, Michael, please wait!" She called out, her voice plaintive and just a tad desperate.
He stopped in his tracks, although he did not turn around to face her. Sydney gave a silent prayer of thanks. "Please, Michael, if you're going to go through with this wedding, that's fine. It's your life and I don't have any right to tell you how to live it."
"But if I ever meant anything to you, please allow me to say what I have to say." Sydney choked down the lump rising in her throat. "Because I can't stand having you think that I never really cared about you. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Vaughn slowly turned around, unable to just walk away. With a sinking feeling in his gut, he came to the realization that he would always be powerless against Sydney's considerable charms, a weakness that would probably doom him for all eternity. She would haunt him until his last breath on earth.
"What is the truth, Sydney?" His tone was weary.
"I-I won't bore you with all of the gory details, but the fact of the matter is that I…I suffered through a bit of a mental collapse last summer." Sydney could barely stammer out the words and it showed in the stiltedness of her speech. "I…lost touch…with everyone and everything around me."
Vaughn's body turned numb when he heard Sydney's confession, his thoughts a mixed jumble inside of his head. How could this be? Sydney had a nervous breakdown? After everything she had gone through in the five years he had known her, he had always thought her to be the strongest person he had ever known. How could this have happened to her?
"How?" He uttered uncomprehendingly. "It doesn't seem possible that you could ever lose control of your life."
"I wouldn't have thought so, either." She said with a self-conscious shrug. "You remember how I always used to say to you that I was very good at compartmentalizing my emotions?" Sydney looked at Vaughn, trying to see behind the stoic expression on his face. "It was my way of dealing with all of the crap that got thrown at me over the years."
"But I think the destruction of SD-6 must have triggered some kind of dam break in my head. All of the terrible things that I struggled so long to keep contained suddenly broke through the barrier and I could no longer keep my head above water." To her complete horror, Sydney started tearing up, those same feelings of helplessness that had overwhelmed her the year before doing their black magic on her emotions once again.
"And I wasn't there to save you from drowning." He murmured in a voice too low for her to hear, castigating himself without reason.
Sydney was speaking again, doing her best to maintain her composure. If she could just keep talking, maybe it would stem the onslaught of her tears. "Everything just came pouring out like a great big flood. Danny's murder and Sloane's lies and my mother's secret past as a KGB agent. Then there was Noah and Emily and my father's involvement in Project Christmas. The list just went on and on and on and I guess I cracked because I just couldn't process all of it." She hastily swiped at her eyes before Vaughn could notice the dampness on her cheek.
Vaughn looked up just in time to see Sydney brush her fingertips across her face and his heart went out to her. He knew how proud she was and he could see that it was difficult for her to admit her shortcomings, even to him. But she had to know that it didn't change his perception of her.
"Syd, please don't beat yourself up over what happened to you." She could hear the compassion in his voice and her lip trembled. "It's not as if you wished it upon yourself."
"I know better than anyone about all you had to deal with during the last five years and you can't blame yourself for finally allowing it to affect you. You were under an enormous amount of stress and strain for a very long time." Vaughn paused. "Any normal human being probably would have buckled within the first six months and the fact that you lasted five years is mind-boggling to me."
"Then again, I don't know why I should have been so surprised." Something akin to awe crept into his voice. "You were the great Sydney Bristow, the bravest, most fearless person I'd ever known." He gave her a little smile.
"But I'm not that person, Michael." She shook her head. "If I were stronger, I wouldn't have let it all get to me. I would have been able to fight it." Sydney burst out in frustration, her chin falling onto her chest as she was unable to meet his gaze for fear of seeing a look of disillusionment in his eyes.
"Sydney--" Vaughn was about to try to prop her up again when it suddenly hit him that it would do no good. Feeding her another Wonder Woman line wasn't going to make her feel any better because she was never going to believe it about herself. Sydney had come to the conclusion that the events of last summer had rendered her into something less than the extraordinary woman she was and all of his confidence-boosting platitudes in the world just weren't going to cut it.
A distressing thought began to burrow its way into his brain and Vaughn took a moment to ponder its validity. He had made no secret of the fact that he had always held her in the highest regard. Sydney had been one of the finest agents he had ever worked with and he often told her so, making it a point to shower her with praise after every successfully completed mission. Part of his intent was simply to congratulate her on a job well done, but on a purely selfish note, he also just liked to bask in the glow that appeared on her face every time he would tell her how impressed he was with her.
But what if his self-confessed admiration for her had done more harm than good? He had always thought he was just playing the role of a supportive friend and colleague, but he could see how Sydney might assume that he really believed all of the hype. If she thought he saw her as some sort of paragon who was perfect and could do no wrong, she would no doubt try her damnedest to live up to his wholly unrealistic expectations because that was the way she was. Sydney was an extreme over-achiever, eager to please the people who mattered the most to her, and for better or worse, she had him listed as a member of that exclusive club.
Her spirit had to have been crushed last summer when she realized the damage that had been done to their relationship, due to a turn of events over which she had no control. Sydney presumably thought her actions unforgivable; no apology would ever be sincere or heartfelt enough to make up for disappointing him. That was probably why she had waited so long to tell him what had happened to her, because she had been afraid he would no longer see her the way he once did.
Oh, God, I've been blaming Sydney all this time and I'm just as much at fault as she is, Vaughn thought to himself, closing his eyes with a somewhat agonized expression on his face. Over the years, he had built her up in his mind to be some sort of superheroine, a one-woman army impervious to the slings and arrows that would normally fell all but the truly exceptional.
But the truth was, Sydney was merely flesh-and-blood just like everybody else, subject to the same vagaries of human frailty that touch us all, and he was an idiot to ever have believed otherwise.
Vaughn opened his eyes and saw Sydney standing there, her gaze firmly attached to the ground and her arms wrapped around her body like a protective shield. The emotions were churning inside him as he took a tentative step towards her.
"I've suddenly realized what a complete and utter fool I've been." His words came out in a shaky whisper.
Sydney slowly raised her head to look at him. "What?" She asked warily, unsure of his intent.
"I put you up on a pedestal, Sydney, and that was wrong of me." Vaughn shook his head, feeling ashamed. "I had you labeled as my ideal woman, someone who was strong and smart and sweet and beautiful. If you asked Eric, he'd tell you in great detail how I used to 'worship at the altar that was Sydney,' as he would put it." He gave her a slightly embarrassed look. "I think that's where I started to run into trouble."
"I'm not sure I know what you mean, Michael."
Vaughn expelled a deep breath before speaking again. "You know, my mom once told me that I suffered from delusions of grandeur where my dad was concerned. Yes, he was loyal to his job and faithful to his wife and loving to his son, but that didn't necessarily mean he was the saint I made him out to be."
"The job made him moody and withdrawn at times and that in turn caused him to be short-tempered with my mother. Their disagreements never amounted to much more than the raised voices-stage and they did a stellar job keeping it from me, but learning about this other side of him made me realize that he wasn't a perfect man." Vaughn looked at Sydney with a thoughtful expression on his face. "He had his share of bad days and good days and he made mistakes, just like the rest of us."
"I'm guilty of tarring you with the same feather, Sydney." His visage turned troubled. "I expected you to live up to this image of perfection I had conjured up in my head, not realizing that I was setting us both up to fail."
"Because none of us is without flaws, Syd, and it kills me that you would rather hide yours than run the risk of disappointing me." Vaughn met Sydney's gaze. "Is that why you never told me about your--what happened to you last summer?" By the way she imperceptibly flinched when he almost said the word breakdown, Vaughn could see that it still made Sydney uncomfortable to talk about it. "I'd always thought we could tell each other anything." He gave her a mournful look.
"I'm sorry." She croaked out. "When I finally got my act together, I wanted to call you. I must've picked up the phone every five minutes only to lose my nerve before I could punch in the last number."
"I was afraid to tell you." Sydney admitted and then winced when she saw the devastated look on Vaughn's face. "Michael, it wasn't because I thought you wouldn't sympathize with me." She said hastily. "You've always shown me great kindness and compassion and I had no reason to think you'd treat me otherwise."
"Then what was it?" Vaughn asked in an urgent voice.
"I wanted to be that ideal woman you always pictured me to be because I knew how you felt about her." Her words came out ragged. "I didn't know how you'd react to plain old Sydney with all of my faults and defects."
"I thought that finding out what I went through would make you see me differently." She went on in a small voice. "I thought it would change the way you felt."
"That could never happen, Syd." His response was automatic.
"How could I be sure of that?" She questioned him. "Except for Cairo, all those years we spent working together, we always tried so hard to keep our feelings under wraps. We never actually talked about what we wanted from each other after SD-6 was dead and buried."
"There was no way we could do that, Sydney." He said soberly. "It's not a smart idea to base all of your hopes and dreams on something that might never happen."
"But then it did happen."
"And we still managed to mess it up."
Hearing Vaughn sound so sad and defeated turned Sydney's waterworks on again. She couldn't stand it that they were like on two opposite sides of a very wide chasm, unable to reach out to each other because they didn't know how the other would respond. They both had been operating under misconceptions, him not believing in the depth and breadth of her feelings for him and her uncertain that he could ever look at her in the same way after finding out that she was far from the epitome of perfection he had built her up to be.
So where did they go from here? Where could they go? Vaughn was still on the verge of marrying someone else unless she could overcome her fears and doubts and simply say what was in her heart.
"Michael, from the bottom of my heart, I'm very sorry for the way we've ended up. I'm sorry I didn't put enough faith in you and I'm sorry I didn't have enough faith in myself. Maybe it's a byproduct from all my years working at SD-6, when we had to struggle so long and so hard just to achieve the smallest victories. That tends to wear you down, you know, continually building your hopes up only to see them dashed." The back of her throat began to tickle.
"I've wanted you and I've waited for you for so long." Sydney confessed to a surprised Vaughn. "And I knew I wouldn't be able to deal with it if you rejected me because you now saw me as less than perfect." She suddenly let out an involuntary sob and turned away from him.
His heart wrenched as Vaughn watched Sydney, her shoulders heaving and her body shaking as the tears spilled from her eyes. In that moment, he couldn't remember why he had ever been angry with her; all he wanted to do was hold her and comfort her.
God, she had promised herself she wouldn't break down like this. At least not in front of him. Crying was like the ultimate manipulation tactic. Women since the beginning of time had used it in order to get their way and Sydney had always sworn that she would never stoop so low.
And the irony of it all was that she wasn't trying to gain Vaughn's sympathy. She was simply letting it all out after three days of worrying and fretting and agonizing. Somewhat mirthlessly, Sydney wondered to herself if she had learned something from her mistakes, after all. Instead of keeping her emotions bottled up inside of her until they erupted like a volcano, she was now a sniveling, blubbering mess.
"Syd?" All of a sudden, Sydney felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't touch me." She shrugged him away. "I'm not crying because I want you to feel sorry for me."
"Then why are you crying?" His voice was surprisingly tender as he gently maneuvered her so that she was now facing him.
"Because I feel sorry for myself." She whined in a petulant tone. Oh, great! Could she sound more like a cantankerous five-year-old who wasn't getting her own way?
Vaughn let out an amused chuckle. Sydney always looked so damned appealing when she wept. Some women became all red and splotchy; she just turned into a fragile, dewy-eyed beauty.
"Oh, Syd, I don't care why you're crying." He wrapped his arms around her and she didn't have the strength to fight him off (not that she would have, anyway). "I just want you to stop." He crooned. "You know how I always hate to see you cry."
Sydney closed her eyes and buried her head against his shoulder. He felt so solid to lean against and she couldn't remember the last time she had felt so safe, so contented.
Vaughn held Sydney until her body no longer trembled and her sobs were reduced to a muted whimper. He felt the silkiness of her hair against his cheek as he breathed in the intoxicating fragrance of her perfume and he closed his eyes, wishing that the moment would never end and knowing all the while that it had to.
Eventually, Sydney lifted her head to look up at him. He reluctantly loosened his hold on her, but to his surprise, she didn't move away. Vaughn gulped nervously as the mood in the room suddenly intensified, sending a wave of emotions through his frazzled brain. He knew he shouldn't be feeling this way, but God help him he wanted her at that moment more than he had ever wanted her before.
Almost as if it had a mind of its own, Vaughn's hand reached up to rest against the base of Sydney's throat, his fingers splayed as he dangled the garnet pendant that hung so delicately around her neck. "I can't believe you still have this." He breathed softly.
"Why would you think I would ever let it go?" She asked quietly. "I've treasured every gift you've ever given me, Michael."
"There haven't been that many." He protested modestly.
Sydney gave him a little smile. "It's not the quantity, it's the quality. Everything you've given me has been from your heart." She touched his face, her fingertips tracing the set of his jaw. "And that includes your heart, doesn't it?" She whispered.
"Syd…" Vaughn said weakly.
"Michael, I love you." She cut him off before he could say anything to stop her. "I know that's the first time I've ever said it out loud, but the truth is that I have loved you for a very long time." Her eyes welled up again, thankful that she had finally gotten the chance to tell him.
The moment he heard Sydney say the word "love," Vaughn knew he was a goner. He couldn't stop himself as he began to kiss her tears away, his tongue tasting the salt of those tears as he slid his lips across the plane of her cheekbone. Sydney closed her eyes and a moan escaped from her lips. Her senses were crying out for him, aching for his touch, yearning for his embrace.
Suddenly his lips were upon hers and it was as if something had exploded between the two of them. Years of pent-up longing and frustration had been unleashed and they both gave into it freely. Vaughn crushed Sydney against his chest as they both sought to make up for lost time.
Sydney found herself falling--literally--into a pile of freshly raked hay, but for all she was aware of, it might have been the softest featherbed. Their clothes were quickly discarded as hands explored and legs intertwined. His every caress inflamed her to the core of her being, surprising and delighting her with its intensity. He reveled in the scent of her hair and the sweetness of her lips. Vaughn had fantasized so many times about making love to Sydney and one glance at her exquisite body was enough to drive him crazy with desire. They came together with reckless abandon, made all the more powerful by the passionate desires that consumed them.
Afterwards, they laid next to each other under an old horse blanket, their bodies close but curiously not touching. Vaughn was confused as hell and Sydney wasn't sure what it all meant, either. Vaughn had just made love to her on the day before he was to be married to another woman. Would that finally make him see that going through with the wedding would be a gigantic mistake? He would at least have to admit that there was still something between them; he couldn't possibly sweep it under the rug and pretend that it didn't exist.
As Vaughn slowly found his way back from blissed-out fantasy to cold, stark reality, he was unable to find the words that could express the wild range of emotions he was experiencing after making love to Sydney for the first time. He was at a loss to explain how he could go from feeling incredibly euphoric to unbelievably guilty in the span of a few moments.
His thoughts turned quite naturally to Alice and the wedding that was to take place the next day. How was he going to be able to face his fiancée after what he had just done? She would probably take one look at him and his culpability would be apparent without him having to say a word.
Vaughn struggled to ascertain from where his feelings of guilt were stemming. Was his remorse due to the fact that he had betrayed a woman he professed to love or because he had derived an inordinate amount of pleasure from an act with the woman he really did love? If it was the former, he didn't know how he would ever be able to make it up to Alice. If it was the latter, he wasn't sure if he was strong enough to once again explore an avenue already paved with years of frustration and heartbreak. At least with Alice, Vaughn knew where he was headed. With Sydney, he had no such assurances.
He didn't want to hurt Alice. He didn't want to hurt Sydney, either. There had already been too much pain spread around and it was time to put an end to it. If only there was a solution that would spare them all.
"Sydney?" He said her name tentatively.
"Yes?" Her response came too quickly, as if she had been anxiously waiting for him to speak.
"I-I don't know what to say about…what just happened."
Sydney felt somewhat deflated as she turned her head to look at him. "Michael, we just made love."
"Yeah, I suppose we did." He had a difficult time forcing himself to meet her gaze.
"You suppose we did?" She repeated incredulously, propping herself up on her elbow. "Please don't tell me that this was just some last-minute fling for you." Her voice was hard.
"No, no, Syd, of course not." Vaughn rushed to clarify his words. "It wasn't just sex. I know that." He was being sincere. Making love to Sydney for the first time had been everything he had ever dreamed about and it meant something to him. It meant more to him than she would ever know.
Sydney was somewhat mollified. "So why are you acting as if you regret it?"
"I will never regret what happened, Sydney." Vaughn said seriously. "For one not-so-brief moment, you were actually mine and I'll never forget that."
She didn't like the way he was speaking in the past tense. As if it would never happen again. "It doesn't have to be a one-time thing, you know."
Vaughn met her gaze with a solemn expression on his face. "I'm getting married tomorrow, Sydney, and I fully intend to honor my wedding vows."
"You're still going through with it?" Sydney sat up, grasping the blanket around her body as she gave him a disbelieving look. Hadn't he felt it? Didn't he see how wonderful and magical and transcendent things could be between them?
"Did you think I wouldn't?"
"But, Vau--"
"Michael." He corrected her, knowing it would tick her off.
"Michael." She grinded out. "How can you? How can you stand before God and all those witnesses and profess your eternal love and devotion to another woman after what we just shared?"
"I can't hurt Alice again, Syd." Vaughn shook his head. "She's done so much for me. After you left--"
"I know, I know." Sydney sounded embittered as she interrupted him. "She's Mother Teresa and Dr. Phil all rolled up into one. I know she picked you up when you were down, but does that mean you have to sign away the rest of your life to her?"
"Don't belittle what she did for me, Sydney." Vaughn said warningly. "You weren't here. You don't know what I went through."
"I know." She looked contrite. "I'm sorry."
"I don't understand why you're acting as if I'm entering into a life of indentured servitude or something like that, anyway. It's a marriage, Sydney, not a prison sentence."
"You won't feel that way after you find out what she has in store for you." She muttered under her breath.
"What?"
"Nothing." She was sorely tempted to tell Vaughn the truth about Alice, but Mrs. Vaughn's words kept echoing through her brain. Marguerite had told Sydney that if Vaughn followed his heart, he would make the right decision and as much as it pained her to keep quiet, Sydney realized that telling tales on Alice shouldn't factor into whatever choice he made. If Vaughn backed out of his wedding to Alice in order to be with her, it had to be a determination free of any outside influences. That was the only way Sydney could be sure that he was with her because he wanted to be, not because he was grateful to her for saving him from a life of misery with Alice or because it was more preferable to being alone.
"I'm sorry, Sydney." He said, feeling inadequate. "I know this must be difficult for you--"
"You're right. It is." She rudely cut him off. "I can't fathom how you can go from making love to me today to marrying her tomorrow night! Are you really so committed to Alice that you can't--" A horrifyingly obvious thought suddenly struck her. "Oh, my God! Is it because you're…in love with her, Michael?" Sydney could barely make her mouth form the words.
Vaughn didn't answer her right away as he endeavored to inject some coherency into his thoughts. "Alice helped me through a rough patch in my life." He said quietly. "She was there for me when I was floundering and I will always be grateful to her for that." Sydney looked up just then, hopeful that she had heard the "but" coming on.
"But that being said, gratitude certainly doesn't equate to love." Vaughn's green eyes captured Sydney's brown ones. "I'm fond of her and I care about her, but I will never love Alice the way I love you."
The tense set of his jawline softened as his lips curved into a smile. "I think I might have loved you from the first moment I saw you even though you were nothing to write home about in your bedraggled state." They shared a grin as they both remembered her shocking red hair and makeup-streaked face. "Sometimes it used to scare me how intense my feelings were for you."
"It scared you?"
"I don't mean that it was something I wanted to run away from. If anything, I embraced it head-on and without reservation." He gave a little shake of his head at his lack of restraint. "Something about you touched me, Sydney, and it grabbed hold of my heart like nothing ever has before or since."
"I wanted to play your white knight and be the person you could always count on. I wanted to hold you and take care of you and reassure you that everything would turn out in the end."
Sydney felt as if her heart was breaking. "You were that person for me, Michael. You still are."
"I'm not so sure about that anymore." Vaughn sadly contradicted her. "Syd, I want you to know that I'm deeply sorry for everything you went through last summer and I'm glad you told me about it. It helps me to understand. To forgive."
"Do you mean that?" She pressed him. "Or are you doing this to punish me, Michael? To make me regret ever leaving you?"
"No, Sydney." Vaughn looked somber. "I would never treat you that way."
"Even if you were mad at me?"
"Even then." He replied. "And I'm not mad at you. Not anymore." His forehead creased into a frown. "It's just that I have obligations and I can't walk away from them."
"How very noble of you." An edge of hurt crept into her voice. "Why do you have to be so damned bound to your honor? I know you want to do right by Alice, but don't you deserve to be happy, too? Don't we both deserve that after everything we've been through?" She said pleadingly.
The musical sound of a ringing cell phone startled them both and Sydney suddenly found herself gazing at the broad muscles in Vaughn's naked back as he twisted away from her to fumble for his phone. She heard him let out a muffled curse word before clicking the "Off" button on his phone.
"That was Alice calling from the house." Vaughn informed her in a flat tone. "She's probably wondering where I am."
"I'm not surprised." Her face was impassive.
"Syd…I'm sorry, but I have to go." He said awkwardly.
"Fine." She couldn't bring herself to look at him and could only listen as he stood up to hastily throw on his clothes. A few moments later, she felt his presence as he towered over her.
"Sydney, are you going to be okay?" He asked hesitantly.
"Probably not, but that doesn't seem to matter right now." She still couldn't look at him.
Vaughn closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "Syd, I just don't know if I can turn my life upside-down again for you. It didn't work out the last time and look how we ended up."
Sydney squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to steel herself against the enormous amount of pain and heartbreak that was seeping into her soul.
"All right, then just go." She ordered him in a brusque manner. "Go back to your safe little existence with Alice if you think that'll make you happy."
There was nothing more he could say. As Vaughn slowly walked away from her, he became painfully aware that he would probably never again experience any form of true happiness for the rest of his life. Not if his life was one without Sydney.
To be continued…
Author's Note: Okay, I know that was sad, but I had to do it. But don't worry. You've got two more chapters coming to see how it all plays out.
A huge thanks to everyone who has been taking the time to read and review. Your comments are always enjoyable to read and sometimes you guys make me LOL (especially you two, Corinne and Rachel (Ignit46944)).
P.S. to Rachel: You got your shirtless Vaughn! (grin)
See ya later!