Woah, thanks for all of your feedback! I'm pretty proud of this chapter. I'm getting more into the story, you can probably tell between chapter one and this! lol! The first chapter is always hardest for me to write, so hopefully I've grown out of that!!

star angel - well, I can't post five, but here's one for you ;) I've got another chapter (or two) written, so more feedback, more stories ;)

colly e. - i realized the exact same thing as I was posting chapter four!!! hopefully this will tie everything together :D

Thanks to EVERYONE for their feedback! I've gotten two more chapters written, so the more feedback I recieve, the more chapters I post ;)

Chapter Five - Until We Die
Sydney had been living as Kate Jones for a month. Every day was the same. She would wake up, get dressed, drive down to the Starbucks five minutes from her apartment. She would work there until two in the afternoon, go home, clean up, take a shower, and eat dinner. After dinner she went straight to bed. She didn't feel upto going out, and she also didn't want to take the chance.

Did Vaughn miss her? She wondered. She sat at the kitchen table she had gotten from a second hand store, drawing patterns on the tabletop with the drops of coffee that were once stuck to the bottom of her cup. She draw half of a heart, wondering if she should bother filling the other half in.

Thirty eight days into her dissapearance, and she still missed Vaughn. She had never expected to get over him within a week, but she missed him. She missed everyone. Hell, at this point she missed working for the CIA. Sighing, she watched the sun set out her balcony. The living room and dining room (and kitchen, for that matter), was pretty much melded into one. The balcony, glass doors, and livingroom on the far side, bedroom off there, diningroom stuck in the middle, and then kitchen beside the front door.

She had a nice life, she knew that. She wasn't living in some mouldy safehouse. She didn't have her life threatened, at the moment, by Sark (or Sloane..she had origionally thought he was dead, but hell, now anything was bound to happen.) She didn't have to scrape to meet ends meet. But, even if she did live in a safehouse, and she knew Sark was after her..well, as long as Michael was with her, she would pull through.

That sounded sappy. She knew it. But at the moment, she was without emotional support. She could psysically defend herself fine - that wasn't the problem. But not having someone when you came home, broken down in tears, well it made her hurt even more.

She wasn't going to risk Vaughn's life, though. All of her old life, except Vaughn, was dead. Literally. She wouldn't put Vaughn into that position. She would rather live every day for the rest of her life in fear, rather then to put Vaughn through one day of hell. Wiping her hand through the half of a heart, she stood up and dumped her cup into the sink.

It wasn't going to hurt this much forever, was it?

---

"God damnit, Jack" Vaughn banged his fist on the table. "I fucking knew this would happen! God, I should have done it myself. I should have done it myself..."

"Vaughn, your anger won't get you anywhere." Jack replied calmly.

Vaughn jumped to his feet, his face an inch from Jack's, his finger taunting him under his face.

"Don't you say that. Don't you care about your daughter at all? She's dead, Jack. She's dead, because you wouldn't send out a search for her. You killed your only daughter, because...because I don't know, why did you kill her? Do you have no one else to torture and kill, so you had to do it to your own blood? I will never forgive you for this, Jack. Never. You killed her. You killed Sydney." Vaughn hissed. His green eyes were flickering, penetrating deep into Jack's ice cold blue stare.

Neither moved. It seemed like hours to both of them, but within seconds, Kendall walked in.

"Would you shut up, Agent Vaughn? I heard you in the operations area." Kendall exclaimed, throwing Sydney's file against the table. "Well, that's it. You were right, Vaughn. We should have looked out for her. There was one phonecall origionating from her cellphone in Detroit-"

"Detroit? How come I never heard of this?" Vaughn cut in, his eyes locking with Kendall's.

"Because, Mr Vaughn. We didn't want you to do anything unrational. We are all very well your willing to sacrifice anything for Miss Bristow, and we didn't want you to put her life in danger, or the agencies, simply because you decided to head on off to Detroit. Can I continue now?"

Vaughn nodded, taking a step away from Jack.

"However, it was nothing. We couldn't track the call, however we know it was not Sydney. We also had some intel on stolen cars with someone with Bristow's profile everywhere from France to New York to Chicago, but nothing turned up at those locations, either. So until we get some classified intel, or Bristow walks in that door, we're pronouncing her deceased."

"Why are you calling her dead if you haven't gotten some intel on it?" Vaughn inturrupted, completely taking Kendall off guard. Hadn't he just said that he was calling her dead, too?

"After operations searched the villa the two of you were staying at, we found some destroyed photographs in the fireplace." he paused, moving the folder of pictures from one hand to the other. "After analzying them, we've traced the route print number, and reprinted the images that were destroyed. These came back from the origional negatives."

Kendall tossed the manilla folder he was holding onto the table infront of Vaughn. He looked at it for a second, wondering if he should look at it. What if they were pictures of Sydney's corpse? What if they were...

"Would you open the folder, Vaughn?" Jack spat, reaching for the folder. Vaughn pushed his arm off, and swiped the folder from under his reach. Opening it slowly, he felt his heart break when he saw images of everyone that Sydney loved, dead. Shot point blank.

"Are these real?" he asked, his voice almost breaking. He had been very close with Will, so it was a kind of heartbreak for him too. Francie had been distant, as Sydney had put it, since they had started seeing eachother, so Vaughn had never really gotten to know her. But it was still hard to look at.

"Yes. Intel analyzed them, and they are a hundred percent real. We're route tracing the number on each prints. We'll try and place a name with a number asap." Kendall reported, as Jack took the prints to look at.

"So you think the same people who killed Francie and Will among others got to Sydney as well?" Vaughn asked softly, his heart racing a million miles a minute. No, no, no....

Kendall's stare silenced him, as he felt his throat tighten, his lungs twist, and his heart stop. Nononononononnononono. He broke down right there in the CIA operations center.

---

I wonder if they miss me. I wonder if they sent out any search teams. I wonder how my father is handling it. I wonder if my mother knows. I wonder if Vaughn's gone crazy yet. I wonder if I'll ever see them again. I wonder if Will and Francie got a funeral. I wonder what they told their families..

Sydney's pillow was slowly growing damp as more tears poured from her eyes. Rolling onto her left side from her right, she hugged her pillow close to her body, pretending she could feel Vaughn's embrace around her. Blindly reaching for her bedside table, she fumbled around for a moment, finally finding her radio and turning it on. A Goo Goo Dolls song filtered throughout the room, making her break into tears even more. No, this song was not playing..no...no....

And I'd give up forever to touch you
'Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

Sydney's face broke out into a grin as she entered the apartment, her laughter breaking around the hallway. Vaughn was right behind her, slightly tripping over himself as he entered behind her. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her around to face him.

"Your beautiful."

She smiled, feeling a blush creep up her cheeks. She let his lips touch hers softly for a moment, before the laughter came back and she ducked through his arms. He was stunned for a moment, never thinking she would use her "spy mode" on him. Expecially to get out of a kiss!

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
'Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

She remembered when he had left that night, she had sat on her couch. She had wondered if their live and love could last forever. She had seriously pondered their amazing relationship that night. She knew, it wouldn't be eachother who tore them apart. It would be work, family,...the government.

She had laughed ironically then, and she laughed now. Through her tears, she broke into laughter at the ironic factor of the question. They had agreed quite early in their relationship that they were in no way a normal couple. They both worked for the CIA, they both went on life threatening missions together...he was her handler, for gods' sake. How could they have ever made a relationship work, anyways?

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

The only thing Sydney had ever wished in their relationship, was that he was the one person she needn't lie to. She had sworn on her life, that never would she utter one untrue word to him, as long as she was alive. She wanted him to see Sydney Bristow. Not Anna, not Rachel, not Kate...not anybody but Sydney.

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
And you bleed just to know you're alive

Her cries were filled with utter desolation at the point that those lyrics filtered throughout the room. They couldn't have expressed her thoughts more to a "T" then at that point. So many times in her life she felt as though she wasn't real. She felt as though she were a character in a comic book...in a tv show. Anything but real. Many times she had taken the tortue she recieved on so many occassions, just to make sure she still felt her skin. She still felt pain, she still felt...emotion.

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

The world wouldn't understand who she was. Nobody did, and nobody would. Nobody except for Michael. But now, Michael knew only Sydney Bristow. As far as she knew, he thought she was,...dead?, and as far as she (and the rest of Chicago) knew, her name was Kate Jones, and she had lived in Chicago for her whole life.

She made a new promise to herself. She would live her life as Kate Jones. She wouldn't endanger Vaughn's life, or anyone elses. If she was to live in a literal hell on earth for the rest of her life, with Sloane or Sark watching over her back, to keep her family and boyfriend (?) from trouble, then so be it.

She felt her stomach clamp.

Was this one promise she could (or would) end up keeping?

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am