chapter/four// STEP BY STEP

Michael knew there were steps to take, a procedure. As much as he was tempted to just kick her ass to the curb, he knew he wouldn't, couldn't do that—not literally. He was a good-hearted gentleman, Alice was a sensitive woman, they had been together for a long time (minus that short snippet of time they weren't together in-between), and this was the type of news you had to break gently. This was going to be difficult. He could, of course, make it so much easier, and just kick her ass to the curb. But no, he wouldn't do that. Instead he took out an old back issue of Men's Life and opened it to page 74—"Three Easy Steps to Leaving Your Woman"—because this was just what he needed: protocol in order to break protocol.

STEP ONE: THE DROPPING CLUES AND SUBTLE HINTS TO INFORM YOUR WOMAN THAT THE DEMISE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP IS NEAR, WITHOUT ACTUALLY HAVING TO EXPLAIN WHY (ESPECIALLY IF THERE IS ANOTHER WOMAN) STAGE.

"I don't think this is working out."

"What isn't?"

"This... Us... Our relationship."

Okay, Michael was usually good at being patient and subtle—that was his specialty. He could tell someone he didn't like them by directing a withering stare their way; he could tell someone how he was worried by the number of wrinkles he was able to generate on his forehead; he was even able to show people what a warm and sensitive guy he was by talking about his father. But right now, right here, he was at a loss: subtlety sure as hell wouldn't work. Alice didn't even seem to take the hint when the hint was a direct arrow to her heart.

"Mm-hm. Can we talk about this later? Trading Spaces is on."

Alice brushed off his declaration with a cavalier sense of disregard. He couldn't believe it. Michael looked at her anxiously while she remained focused on the TV. He kept staring at her, though, hoping that she would catch him through her peripheral vision, recognize his urgency, and turn off the TV. She didn't. So he did.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Didn't you hear what I said?"

"I was watching that."

"What I said was—"

"I heard what you said."

"And..."

"And what?"

"Well..." This was accompanied by a widening of the eyes, and an overemphasized forward-bend of the head and neck, like a bird trying to peck into Alice's conversational walls; Michael thought the overemphasis, which made him look quite ridiculous actually, would better convey his anticipation of her response.

"Well what?"

"Alice, I just... I said I don't want to see you anymore... What do you have to say about that?"

"Oh... You don't mean that."

"What? Of course I do."

"No you don't."

"What do you mean, no I don't?"

"I mean: you don't mean what you said, even if you think you meant it, you know what I mean?"

"What?"

"What?" was the right question. What the hell did she mean? Actually, the more he thought about it, Michael knew exactly what she meant. Well, not what she meant—but what she was meaning to do. And she always did this. Whenever they were having a conversation, discussion, debate, whatever, and their views opposed each other—which was quite often—Alice would always throw out these verbal assaults, jumbling anything and everything until her adversary's conviction and understanding had all but dissipated in the wind. Michael knew this strategy well, and he wasn't going to fall for it; he was going to throw it right back at her.

"I mean what I meant when I said I meant it, even if you don't think I meant what I meant." Take that, Alice.

"No. You're wrong," Alice replied simply, with hardly a blink.

Okay. So his attempt to emulate her verbal offensive was more like a duck-and-miss rather than a strike-and-blow, but at least he wasn't knocked out of it completely.

"Wrong? How can I be wrong? Our relationship, I don't feel like our relationship is working. How can I be wrong about my own feelings?" Michael felt his tone was getting a little too whiny, too desperate for his taste; he had to regroup, regain composure.

"Feelings can deceive you."

Right. Technically, feelings could deceive you; on a worldly level, that was recognized fact. But this feeling wasn't on a worldly level; this was on a personal, emotional level.

"No. You're wrong." Michael said simply.

Then there was a silence. Michael felt more comfortable with this silence than Alice did. He had had the last word—the ball was in her court (and not because of a smashing overhead volley, but because of a sneaky drop shot)—which meant it was her turn to respond. The silence indicated her inability to speak, not his.

"Okay," Alice said, "why?"

"Huh?"

"You said our relationship isn't working. I wanna know why."

Michael looked at her. That was a good question. Why? He couldn't tell her the truth, obviously. And if he couldn't tell her about his secret lover (okay, so they'd only had one kiss—and it happened to be at a time when she was vulnerable—but that was more than enough, Michael thought), then what could he tell her? He could tell her... Jesus, he didn't know what to say, and he had to say something.

"There's someone else."

"Really? Who?"

He didn't like the way she said "really": the "ree" was a little more accented and drawn out than the "lee", and it was a little higher pitched, and it was delivered through a skeptical smirk. And the "who" bothered him even more. It was like she was challenging him.

The answer was easy and he wanted to say it like he felt it, like the way she was making him feel right now: Sydney A. Bristow, bitch.

"Umm."

"Look, Michael. I know you're scared. I am too. I know you feel pressured to... you know... advance our relationship. I mean, yeah, we've been together a long time, and then we broke up and now we're back together again. But I'm fine the way we are. Like this. I just wanna take it one step at a time."

One step at a time. Right. "Me too."

* * * * * *

Sydney knew she wouldn't, couldn't rush into this. They should take it slow (and obviously they had been taking it slow—bills working themselves through Congress moved faster than this). All of that considered, though, now was the time. If the past year was them readying themselves on the diving board, right now was the time to step onto the edge of the platform and what-the-hell-just go-for-it. But Sydney wanted to do it right. She wanted Olympic precision: a smooth transition, perfect timing, with hardly a splash. So she hauled herself over to Francie's room, dug through her stack of magazines, pulled out an old issue of Woman's World, and turned to page 47—"Three Easy Steps to Winning Over Your Man."

STEP ONE: THE DRESS TO IMPRESS WITHOUT LOOKING LIKE YOU TRIED TOO HARD TO IMPRESS, EVEN THOUGH YOU WANT HIM TO NOTICE AND BE IMPRESSED (BUT NOT REALIZE YOU DID IT ONE PURPOSE) STAGE.

She hadn't seen him since that night, since that kiss. She waited for him in the Mikro Self-Storage anxiously, trying not to be so anxious (for her sake), but to remain just anxious enough that he should realize this meeting was important (for his sake), but not appear too anxious (for both their sakes). She heard footsteps and the gate rattle; then she heard a soft and gentle—

"Hey."

"Hey."

He walked up closer to her, and kept walking until he was really close, closer than usual.

"Syd." He said.

"Yeah..."

"About last night." He looked down and lightly rubbed his nose.

"The kiss." They both knew what they needed to talk about, so there was no point in beating around the bush, Sydney thought.

"Yeah. The kiss. Um. I'm sorry... about that."

"I'm not." She said.

He smiled.

She smiled.

They smiled. They were both smiling at each other. And they couldn't stop smiling. They were both grinning like idiots—and as much they wanted to express their happiness at this recent development in their relationship, they didn't want to look like they had no control of their facial muscles whatsoever.

Michael finally broke his smile.

"You look really pretty today."

Sydney kept smiling.

* * * * * *

Michael knew he had to apologize, even though he wasn't really all that sorry. It was just that at the warehouse she was miserable and crying, and if he didn't apologize—or at least show some sort of recognition that it wasn't the most appropriate timing for a kiss—then she might have gotten the wrong impression, and marked him as an insensitive, opportunistic bastard. All right, maybe that was a bit harsh, but you never know. And Michael didn't want to leave anything to chance, not after he had made it this far. He didn't want to risk it—he and Sydney were almost there. However, there were still a few more steps to be taken.

The Michael and Sydney movie had been greenlit, but there was still one nagging contract he had to get out of before he could start filming: The Alice Returns movie.

STEP TWO: THE POINTING OUT HER SHORTCOMINGS SO WHEN THE BREAK-UP COMES SHE'LL BE MORE MAD THAN SAD, AND IT'LL SEEM MORE CONSENSUAL (SO YOU WON'T BE THAT GUILTY) STAGE.

It was there again. The damn thing was there again. He couldn't believe she put it back, after all that arguing about it.

"Where did you get this?" Michael yelled to Alice, who was in the next room. It wasn't the first question that came to mind; the first one was more along the lines of "why?" But he knew the answer to that, so he asked "where?"—because "where" was a better question, because he thought he had hidden it far away and deep down and out of reach. He never thought it would ever get the chance to resurface, even if someone was dedicated to digging it up.

"Get what?" Alice asked.

"Don't play innocent. You know what."

"It was in the closet."

"Yeah, it was in the closet. So why is it on the wall now?"

"Because that's where you hang pictures."

"Alice, I put it away... in the closet... for a reason."

"I don't know what your problem is with it."

"We've been over this. You know how much I hate this picture."

"Well I think you look adorable."

He didn't look adorable. He looked twelve: His eyes were bulging out of its sockets, his goofy smiled turned too far upward on the left side, and his unruly hair went down and back, over and out, all over the place. The lighting didn't help either: he looked like Jonathan Taylor Thomas on the cover of Bop magazine circa 1995. (Granted some people thought JTT—as they affectionately called him—was cute, adorable. But that was beside the point: no grown man aged 30 should ever bear any resemblance to a kid in a teeny bopper pin up.) This picture was detestable and ignominious, and Alice thought it was darling and precious. That had to say something.

"There's a reason I took it down."

"Well... if you really hated it that much, you would've burned it or something."

That was true. Why didn't he burn it? Was that saying something, the fact that he didn't burn it, that he just buried it under some old sweaters? Perhaps underneath it all he had a fondness for it, a deep sentiment too dear to let go.

"No. I hate this picture. And I hate that you actually took it out and put it back up." Michael said conclusively, while he yanked the frame off the wall, marched over to the hallway closet, and threw the damn thing back in with reckless abandon.

The truth was, Alice did things like this all the time. It was wasn't a big deal, really; it's just for some reason, these things bothered him. And it wasn't just things she did, but also things she had, things she wore, things she talked about, things she liked. Michael had plenty to bitch about.

(Some of the things—in case you were wondering—in order of descending annoyance factor: She drove a station wagon—you know the ones that look like a log cabin with those wood panels along the side. What's worse, she had a Vote Perot '96 bumper sticker proudly adhered to the back. When she wasn't in business dress, she liked to wear those baby-T's that said—in embossed silver font, glitter and all—things like "girlfriend," or "Angel," with a halo over the "A." And the worst thing that she did—the thing that bothered Michael the most—was that she appended a "th" sound to end of the word "height." There was no such word as "heighth." Oh, and one more thing: her favorite c.d. of all time was Now! That's What I Call Music Volume 5. Michael wasn't sure if this relationship was worth all that.)

* * * * * *

"Hey Syd."

"Hey."

Francie sat down beside her on the couch. They hadn't talked since their fight about... she didn't know, something about poetry or bank stuff, or whatever.

"What are you watching." Francie eased into conversation.

"Law and Order."

"Criminal Intent?"

"Mm-hm."

"You know, there are better things to watch at nine o'clock on Sunday."

"I know... it's just... it's been pre-empted this week."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So."

"... so."

"Listen Syd." Francie turned her body to directly face Sydney.

"No, Fran, you don't have to apologize."

"Yeah, I do."

"Then I need to apologize too. I know I haven't been around a whole lot. It's just..."

"I understand... Actually, I don't really, because what the hell kind of bank makes you fly around the globe week after week and... I guess I'm trying to apologize. So. I'm sorry. I yelled at you. Last time."

"I'm sorry I haven't been there for you."

There. They made up. Finally. This whole thing had been eating away at Sydney ever since she was unable to return the door slam.

"So... you wanna go out tomorrow? Do some girl stuff?"

Sydney gave her a soft smile.

Francie understood: "You have another trip."

Sydney usually didn't like it when she had another trip, but this wasn't going to be just another trip: It wasn't sanctioned by SD-6; it was CIA. And her partner wasn't going to be Dixon; it was going to be Michael Vaughn.