Chapter Three
Loophole

Time passes quickly when you expect the world to end at any instant; but it didn't, and the next day rose the same as the last, and the next, and the one after that, until three weeks separated him from the events in Mexico City. He took Kendall's advice and spent the hours on vacation--as much of a vacation as the inside of his apartment was, where the only faces he ever saw were Eric and Will and Donovan.

He has nightmares now, the kind where he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, he throat raw and his arms reaching for apparitions that have already disappeared. He always sees her in his dreams, standing like he last saw her, looking back at him with her eyes deep enough to drown in. She'll open her mouth to speak, to expose something that he knows will change everything, but that's when the world shatters, splinters into jagged black slivers sharp enough to cut.

He was dumped abruptly into consciousness in the middle of his living room, halfway off the couch and fighting a losing battle with the thin blanket he had thrown over himself at some time over the course of the night. He freed his body from the constraining folds and dropped the rest of the way to the floor, pressing his back against the solid bulk of the couch as he drew in shaky breaths, while across the room the laugh track coming from the television mocked his distress.

It took him a few minutes, watching the VCR clock tick over from 3 a.m. to three after, to soothe the turmoil raging in his head, to convince himself that he was still real and whole--and she was not.

His irritation finally forced him to his feet, and he scrabbled in the wreck of the cushions until he recovered the remote, jabbing violently at the buttons before he finally hit the right one that made the TV screen go blank; the room plunged into a silence, the most terrifying of sounds.

He knows after nearly a month of nights like these that he won't be able to sleep again, but he can't stay where he is.

He glanced down at his clothing, a pair of sweatpants and a King's shirt, and hoped that no one else would be wandering around at this hour to see him since he had no intention of changing. He embarked on a frenzied search for his tennis shoes, but only came up with his dress ones; he heaved a sigh and put them on anyway. He grabbed up his keys and his wallet and looked back one more time to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything. Donovan gazed back him from the nest of blanket and cushions he had abandoned, he whined and shook his back end before giving up and dropping his head between his paws; he's already used to the new nocturnal habits of his owner.

He's been everywhere around L.A. where they were ever together searching for closure, some memory that will trigger a response in him and enable him to finally let her go; he even spent a few hours last week drifting around the convenience store, hunting for it between bags of Fritos. There's only one place he refused to go, somehow everything he associated with the warehouse would destroy the adversary he had been building in his mind and reduce her to the sweet, noble Sydney he had known, making him incapable of escaping her charms forever.

This was the last time, he promised himself as he pulled up to the pier; after he went back to work tomorrow he wouldn't have time or energy to waste on sentimental escapades like this. Tomorrow, he'll compartmentalize, because there comes an occasion when you finally realize you won't die of it and you have live out the rest of your life.

Tomorrow. But today he's reserved for sinking into all those vulnerable things he's going to miss now they're gone.

He wasn't surprised at all by the black SUV that pulled up next to his own car, and he was unmoving as Jack Bristow settled beside him, leaning stiffly against the railing. He hadn't seen much of the elder Bristow lately, but from what Vaughn had witnessed, he seemed to have been reduced to shadow of himself, or more accurately Kendall's shadow, always following a step behind to do his bidding. But the man who stood next to him presently was not grief-stricken in the least.

"I know what you're thinking," Jack pronounced confidently, his eyes on the point where the sky and sea met, "And you're wrong. She's not like her mother."

Vaughn didn't rise to the bait, and Jack seemed almost disappointed, but he continued nonetheless, "She wants to see you, give herself a chance to explain."

That shocked an answer out of him, ridding him of any pretense he had of remaining unruffled under Jack's scrutiny. "She's still in the area?"

Jack relaxed, in his element now that he had made his companion suitably uncomfortable. "I'm not so stupid that I would tell you that."

"Why are you helping her, Jack?"

"I thought you of all people would understand. I wanted my daughter out of this life, but she would never leave until Sloane was gone, and even then the CIA wouldn't let an asset as valuable as her walk out." Vaughn started to protest, but Jack cut him off with one biting glare. "Don't. I don't want to hear your naïve sense of allegiance. We both know they would have found an excuse to keep her. But I found a loophole."

"So you gave her to the enemy?" he erupted, unable to control his anger any longer.

"Not exactly the enemy. Irina and I have a..." he rummaged around for a word that could describe their unique relationship, "...a common ground when it comes to Sydney. We want what's best for her, so I called in a favor that she was sure to agree to. In return for what I asked, I made sure she got what she wanted: Rambaldi. That's how alliances work, Agent Vaughn, neither side has to like each other as long as they get what they want."

"I don't know," Vaughn addressed the horizon, unable to meet the other man's eyes and retain his dignity. "I don't think I can do it. Coming face-to-face with her after this...I can't trust anyone anymore. Not even you."

Jack pushed back from the railing and took the first steps towards his car, sending Vaughn one last smoldering glower. "I really had expected better of you, boy," he snarled condescendingly.

"You know, Jack," Vaughn said carelessly, stopping the other man in his tracks, "I could turn you in for what you've admitted here."

"Yes," Jack countered, regarding the younger agent for the first time as a true threat to himself and his twisted sense of family, "You could."

"Tell her I'll meet her at four o'clock tomorrow. She knows where."