Chapter One

She's been gone for months! Vaughn thought to himself in disbelief.

'Months.' he muttered to himself over and over like a mantra.

He pulled up to the warehouse checking behind him yet again to make sure he wasn't followed. He wasn't exactly thinking clearly when he left the office but no one was going to accuse him of not doing his job. He walked into the warehouse barely containing himself, but he was hoping to gain some insight on the situation just by looking at her.

That thought caught him off guard.
What he would have given in the past weeks and months just to see her and now here she was. He allowed himself a couple of minutes before he made himself known to just look at her, to make sure this wasn't some joke.

Her back was turned to him as he approached but she knew he was there.
She turned and let out a sigh of relief,
'Vaughn. Hey.'
She casually sat down on a crate and looked up at him waiting for his reply.

What the Hell! Vaughn thought to himself. She's acting so cool and calm, like she just saw me yesterday, when all I want to do is run to her, snatch her up in my arms and vow never to let her go again.
'Hey.' he said to her, his voice laced with as much sarcasm as he could manage.

At this, she got up and began to pace the small area that the cage allowed them. After what seemed like hours, she gingerly sat on the table that had served her as a chair so many times in the past.

He stared at her incredulously. She was bidding her time, pulling herself together but she was severely pissing him off in the process. He willed her to speak, to say anything, just to hear her voice again, to know that this was real.

Finally she began.

For close to an hour, she relayed to him (in great detail) every second of her last mission so long ago. As she finished though, he realized that she wasn't going to say a single word about where she had been and what had happened to her.

Something was wrong. This wasn't his Sydney.

He tried that look he had when he knew she was hiding something from him but this time it didn't work, she wouldn't look at him. He noticed belatedly that she hadn't looked him in the eye since he got there, this scared him. He couldn't hold back any longer.
'Do you want to tell me what really happened now?' purposely keeping his voice steady, already knowing that he wasn't going to like what she would tell him.

She looked up at him sharply and their eyes met. He watched fascinated as the panic began to set in but behind this he saw an infinite pain and sadness. Sure there had been pain and sadness in her eyes before, it was one of the reasons she affected him so much, but this time the pain was on an entirely different level. Just seeing this small change in her, his heart ached. This is when the anger had set in and he clenched his fists to keep from hitting something.

Several minutes passed and she was still staring at the floor. Vaughn tried desperately to think of something that would get her to open up and just talk to him, he couldn't take not knowing any longer. Having only the best intentions and secretly hoping for one of those smiles he liked to believe were just for him, he blurted out,
'Are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to beat it out of you?'
She looked up at him and he felt the smile fade from his face.

'Too late.' she whispered.

In that moment his heart broke for her yet again.