Okay, everyone, we're going back to the very beginning of this fic with this story – this is the reality where Vaughn chooses Syd. J

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b) Sydney – Making It Work

"Syd? It's-it's Vaughn. I know that I'm probably the last person you ever want to talk to right now, but – we need to talk." His voice is quavery, shaking. This is the hardest thing he's ever done – but perhaps the most important.

"I know." Her voice is stronger than his is, but still weak, uncertain.

She doesn't know whether or not he's calling to end it finally, to tell her he's staying with Lauren – or calling to tell her what he really wants, what he really needs – her, he thinks with a kind of shocked detachment. Because for him there was never any real choice to be made, was there? He loves Lauren – she's his wife. But Sydney…is Sydney. It was always different with her – less about love, and more about completeness. She made him whole, he thinks, craving her presence, her warmth, her love now even more than he did in the first few months after her death.

His mind is made up, but there was never any real question about which way he would jump, at least not to him.

There was never any debate. Not really. After all, what can stand in the way of two parts of the same soul? Certainly not words said in the grief, pain – torment he felt after her death.

He knows he should feel bad about what he's doing, what he's done to Lauren – and he does. She's a good person, a genuinely nice, talented, beautiful woman who deserves better than what he's doing to her now. And he should feel worse for degrading the sanctity of marriage, for going against the Catholic upbringing that always taught him that divorce was just wrong – all of this he knows, but – well, he's never played by the rules where Sydney's concerned, has he?

He remembers with a start his phone call with Sydney, and guiltily speaks again into the phone.

"I know this is a lot to ask, especially if you still want to kill me – and I don't blame you for wanting to kill me, by the way – but could we get together sometime and talk? Just to see if- to see if we can make this work?"


"What about right now?" She says, and he can hear laughter in her voice next to hope, the same hope he feels, the hope that tells him maybe this can work, that maybe she feels the same way as he does.

"What do you mean?"

"For a spy, you're really not very observant, are you, Mr. Vaughn? Turn around."

And he does as she says, and he sees her standing there, a grin on her face, delighting in surprising him.

"Hi." She speaks first, her amusement evident in her voice.

"How'd you know where I was?"

"I went to the hockey rink, because I remember you love it there. But it was closed, so I went to the park. But you weren't there, so I came here," she replies, her tone softer, gentler now. It's not the voice of a friend anymore, but the voice of a lover.

"How'd you know I'd be here?" he asks her softly.

"You fell in love with me here. You'll always come here."

He's visibly startled by this comment, not because it was necessarily wrong [quite the opposite, in fact] but because she knew it, knew the significance of this place to him.

"How do you know that, Miss Bristow?" he asks her, a hint of humour creeping into his own voice. Things are going to be all right, he thinks now. Things are going to be just fine.

"Because I fell in love with you here." Her words are soft, but the emotion behind them is not. She looks around the pier slowly before she continues. "And I could never resist this place, not even when I was angry enough to want you dead."

She comes and sits down beside him on the pier railing, an old white rickety thing that doesn't look like it would support one person's weight, let alone two.

They sit for a while, enjoying the silence and the pleasure of each other's company but at the same time unable to speak for fear of destroying the fragile balance they have only just established.

She gathers the courage to speak first, much to his relief.

"You want to make this work?"

"More than anything I've ever wanted in the world."

"What about Lauren?"

He looks at the gold ring still adorning his ring finger, and pulls it off. With a quick flick of the wrist, it's gone, into the Pacific where she threw her beeper nearly four years before.

Actions speak louder than words.

He speaks again, this time in a flat voice. "She's gone. Or will be, soon. I don't know if she'll be at home when I get there, to be honest."

He pauses, unsure whether or not to continue, but he errs on the side of caution, which with Sydney always involved telling her the truth – the whole truth.

"She knows I'm still in love with you – that I never stopped loving you. You have to understand, Syd, that when I married Lauren – I honestly thought you were dead. She was a nice woman. I knew that I could never be as happy with her as I could have been with you – but you were gone, and she – well, she said she loved me. And I said I did as well. I always knew I was settling for second best….but she was good to me. Heavens knows it was better than I deserve, for what I've done to the two of you."

He sighs.

"She's a good woman. You'd like her, I think. So much like you in many ways – smart, beautiful, could kick my ass forty-seven ways into Saturday….but she's not you. And she doesn't deserve to be with someone who doesn't love her like I love you."

"I love her – I can't deny that." He hears her draw breath quickly, uncertain of what was to come.

"But marrying her was a mistake. Because she's not you, not a part of me like you are."

He pauses slightly, allowing her to digest what he's just said.

"Have you ever felt like someone made you whole? Or like everything in your life up to a certain point was only there to prepare you for their entrance into your life? Like you were fated to be together, meant to be together because nothing could ever possibly separate you?"

"Yes," he hears her say quietly.

They fall silent again, because words are no longer necessary. They both understand, better than words could ever express.

It's only when he sees her rubbing her arms from the cold breezes coming off the ocean that he stands to leave, hauling her to her feet and giving her his jacket in the process.

"I'm sorry – for everything."

"I know," she replies, pausing slightly. "So you want it to work?"

"Yes."

She takes his hand, and they walk off. She leans into his shoulder and rests his head on her shoulder, and somehow, he knows that everything's going to be right. Nothing's going to part them again.

He chooses the other part of his soul, in this reality.

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Reviews are, you know, very nice…J