Title: Remembrance
Author: Jenn
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: To Cause You this Pain
Dedications: alli, puddle, Old Romantic, ChocolateQueen, Jen, screech

7.

To Cause You this Pain


He stood there for a moment, closing his eyes, just letting the shock flow through his entire body. He had to digest everything thrown at him.

But he couldn't think.

Not with her in his arms, not with her tears falling in hot splashes against his neck, her hair falling across his arm, her own arms tight around his neck.

All he could do was hold on, just as tightly.

He could stay like this for the rest of eternity, could stand in this single moment in time with this woman forever… and he knew that he would never get tired of it. "I remember SD-6, Sydney," he whispered in her ear.

Reluctantly, she pulled back, looked into his eyes with a look that he couldn't quite decipher.
Reluctantly, he let her go.

"You do?"

He hadn't been sure if the dust and the remnants of the building that had flashing through his mind was all that SD-6 was to him. He hadn't been sure if that was the whole story. But at the sound of her question, the sound of the complete need and urgency that was apparent in her voice, he remembered.

"Why are you shaking your head?"

"Because you said another."

"So?"

"Well, if you did have another double agent inside of SD-6, you most likely wouldn't tell me until I was authenticated."

He had to hide his grin at the pure candor that erupted out of this woman's mouth. The way her gravity contrasted so starkly to that crazy bright red hair.

"Unless I had an instinct about you."

She looked at him, her gaze unraveling him- unsettling him.

"My guess is that you don't. Have another double."

"We might."

"But you want me to believe that you do so that on the off chance that I'm looking to be a triple agent, I'll report back there was an existing mole to upset the balance of my agency."

He wanted to shake his head and laugh… but he had a feeling that she wouldn't have laughed with him. "I'm not trying to play you… you need a dentist."

He looked back into her eyes and nodded. "Yeah. I do."

And the tears fell again, breaking another little piece of him. "I… I'm so sorry, Sydney."

She furrowed her brow, surprised. "About what?"

"That I have to put you through this. That you have to put up with me every day with no prospect of progress in the future… that you're still tied to me because I'm alive even though every day is another trial with a man who doesn't even remember yo-"

She put her finger against his lips, quieting him. "Vaughn. Don't even think that. It's not putting up with you… I'm doing this because I love you. I just… I just love you. Because you need me whether you remember be or not. And no matter how much it might hurt in the mornings when you wake up and look at me with a question in your eyes, I wouldn't exchange you for anything. I want to be tied to you forever, Michael. And the flare of recognition when you get a memory, the way you hug me so tight when you realize… it makes everything worth it."

She moved back into his arms, hugging him to her. "It makes everything worth it."






tbc…
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