Chapter Four:

Puzzle Pieces

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Sydney stood frozen to the spot, panicked thoughts rushing through her brain. How was this possible? Was she still back in her cell, dreaming of him? No, this was all too real, the sound of the ocean roaring outside, the low hum of the refrigerator clicking in the kitchen, the raspy sounds of her breath and Vaughn's colliding in the air. This was the moment she had waited six months for but it was not at all like she had expected it to be.

A low moan came from the man on the floor in front of her and she snapped out of her daze. Dropping to her knees beside him, she pulled him to her, cradling his head in her lap. He looked exhausted, paler than she remembered with new lines creasing his forehead. The smell of stale liquor and smoke rose from him and she winced in pain, recalling Oleg's words about Vaughn drinking himself into a stupor.

She smoothed his hair and let herself really look at him; this tired and beaten down man was still the same man she loved so intensely. The mere sight of him brought fresh tears to her eyes, she could scarcely believe what twist of fate had brought them together this time. How was it that a Rambaldi painting had been hidden for so long in Vaughn's childhood home? There were deeper connections here that she could only guess it but she didn't like the implications.

"Vaughn," she had spoken his name so many times in the past six months and now here he was right in front of her and she was at a loss for what to do.

"Vaughn, wake up." She caressed him tenderly, tracing the ever so familiar and beloved contours of his face. "Wake up, its really me, I'm really here. Please wake up." A tear spilled over and landed on his cheek. She could not hold back the sobs that wracked her body. Strangled gasps were escaping her throat and she rocked him gently, murmuring soft words of love. The moment was too much for her, the intensity of emotions that she had been barren of for so long. Every nerve crackled where her body touched his, the familiarity of this sensation was all too welcome to her numbed senses. Lowering her head to his, she pressed a soft kiss on his forehead.

She didn't notice the movement of his arm until it came around to circle her shoulders tightly, his hand softly moving in circles as if to comfort her. She pulled away to find clear green eyes gazing up at her, the love that she saw there was enough to bring another choked sob from her.

"Sydney," he whispered her name softly, a smile breaking out over his face. "Ah now this is the best hallucination I've had in months. You're never usually this real." He sat up gingerly, rubbing the back of his head and then looking around the room. His eyes returned to her as quickly as they had left however and the smile grew. Oh how much she had missed that smile, it melted everything away, all the pain and sorrow, just to see him smile at her again. It was the same giddy smile she had received after she had pumped him full of adrenaline and saved his life in France two years earlier. The same smile that she had woken up to every morning after SD-6 had been taken down. That smile was an amazing source of strength for her in all those moments just as it was now.

He was watching her watch him; he was absorbing the tiny details of her appearance as if she would vanish at any moment. He couldn't know that she feared the same thing with him.

"Your hair is blonde," he chuckled softly as he touched it. "You know I don't like blondes. Is this my fantasy or not?"

His words brought the pain surging back abruptly, the full impact of the agony she had seen in him hitting her full force. She was sitting right here in front of him and he thought it was a dream. Well she would prove him wrong.

"Vaughn," it seemed to be all that she could say. Her shock at seeing him had only grown since he had opened his eyes and started speaking. He studied her and for the first time, she could see a flicker of awareness in his eyes. He frowned suddenly and opened his mouth to speak but before he could, she had knocked him flat on his back once more.

Sydney straddled his prone form and kissed him hungrily, ravishing his mouth with her own. One hand reached up to grip the back of his neck, pressing him to her with all the force she felt necessary to prove that she was real, she was here, no illusion could replace this.

His hands were roaming over her back, sliding up her shoulders to mesh themselves firmly in her hair. She smiled into the kiss at the familiar gesture that she had missed so much, the tears still fell freely but now they were full of joy. Her heart lifted as the pain vanished into a fading memory. She was back in Michael Vaughn's arms and that was all that mattered.

They broke apart with a gasp, both struggling for air and gazing at the other with wide eyes. Tears were pouring freely from his eyes and she was surprised when he reached up to wipe her tears away. He cupped her face in the palm of his hands tenderly and stared at her. There was a wild, unrestrained joy that lit his eyes now, a relief so profound that it made her giddy to see.

"It's really you," Vaughn could barely hear the words coming out of his own mouth; they didn't seem to matter anymore. Nothing mattered but this moment and the fact that Sydney Bristow was living and breathing right before his eyes. For the first time in six months, he knew no guilt or pain, no agony of despair. For the first time in so many months, he could feel his heart beating again. He was free. His heart was pounding so hard he was sure it would burst right out of his chest and jump into her hands where it would always be safe.

Sydney nodded, a joyful expression on her face. "It's really me, Vaughn. Oh god, I don't even know where to begin but I never meant to leave you. I was taken, the fire was staged, they faked the bodies in my apartment. Oh God, it's all like a bad dream now." Her words were spilling out in a rush so that he scarcely understood them. The sound of them was what mattered, the sound of her voice, the small way it trembled when she said his name, just like always.

"Oh Syd," he gathered her up in his arms and noticed for the first time how badly she was shaking. She was as overwhelmed by all of this as he was. Emotions neither of them had known for far too long were rushing back over them in a wave, threatening to drown but they were both prepared to go under.

He slid one arm under her legs and scooped her up gently, pressing her close to him. She wrapped his arms around him and nestled against his chest. He could feel her heart beating rapidly through the thin fabric of his sweater and he took a moment to savor the feeling. Sydney's heart beating, something he would never ever take for granted again.

Carrying her to the bedroom, Vaughn flicked on the bedside lamp before depositing her gently on the bed. He sat down beside her and instantly, her arms were back around his waist. It was as if she was afraid if she let go he would vanish. Vaughn ran his fingers through her blonde hair tenderly and leaned back to look into her eyes.

"Sydney Bristow, I love you more than life itself and I have cursed myself every day since you disappeared for not telling you that more often." A great weight seemed to lift from his shoulder as he spoke the words. There was so much more he wanted to say to her, so much which tangled in his throat with haste to reach her ears. Sydney smiled at him, familiar dimples creasing her cheeks, that sparkle in her eye that he recognized and loved so well. It was if the past six months had never happened.

She pulled his mouth down to hers once more and captured his soul in a tender kiss. There was just too much to say that could not be expressed in any better way than this. Vaughn could feel himself falling into her, her fingers laced with his, lips pressed together, sharing breath. This was all he ever wanted, all he ever needed to survive was Sydney Bristow.

They sat together, two lovers returned to each other, they had transcended the shadows of death. Foreheads pressed together, breath escaping raggedly from their lips, they were complete in this moment because they were together again.

"What happened?" He asked the question with the innocence of a child but she could taste the fear in his words. His green eyes studied her dark ones as they looked down, away from his gaze.

She pulled away slightly and he could almost see her visibly hardening, the shell that she had worked so hard to preserve sealing back up where the cracks had formed. He knew that this was not a shield against him, but against her own pain. The implications of this moment rushed back to her and he felt a stab of regret as a sad expression crossed her face. He had brought her back to reality just as she had done for him, but her reality was a much harsher world to deal with. She still had a job to do; the Covenant would become suspicious if she didn't return soon. Unless the two of them made a break for it, they were a great team and they'd done it before. Whatever she was going to do she had to make a decision and fast.

She looked back up, the seriousness in her eyes did not diminish the glow of joyful love that emanated from her but it did sober him slightly. He felt himself coming back down to earth and realized with a faint shock that he was completely and utterly sober for the first time in the six months she'd been gone.

Sydney laced her fingers through his and kissed the palm of his hand softly. When she spoke, the urgency of her voice surprised him.

"Vaughn, you have to listen to me very carefully because both of our lives are most likely in danger right now. Six months ago I was abducted by a group called the Covenant, what do you know about them?"

Vaughn frowned, puzzling over the name. "Not very much. I remember the name was on a list of possible terrorist organizations that I reviewed a few weeks before your disappearance."

"They are extremely dangerous. The Covenant extracted me from the building before they torched it. They set that fire to make you believe I was dead." A shadow of grief darkened the light in his eyes briefly but it vanished when she touched his face. Turning his head slightly to kiss the palm of her hand, he let her continue.

"When I woke up I was in a van. A man named Oleg had me prisoner but he is not the head of the Covenant, he is merely their instrument of torture." Sydney felt the words catch in her throat at the memory of what he had done to her. Vaughn felt a surge of hatred for this man who had hurt her; he would hunt him down and kill him with his bare hands before Oleg could touch her again.

"He made me watch my own funeral," Sydney choked now on her words and her face fell. Vaughn wanted to scream; he knew the exact van she was speaking about. It had been parked two feet from his own car that day. He had noted it as a curiosity but had been too grief stricken to care about who it might belong to.

"Godammit, I saw that van. I was standing right next to it and the whole time you were inside." Tears burned his eyes again but he angrily wiped them away. "If only I had…" He trailed off when Sydney pressed a finger to his lips.

"Stop," she said softly. "You can't blame yourself, Vaughn. It was the thought of you that kept me going for so long. Oleg tried brainwashing me but failed time and again. He was trying to convince me that I was a woman named Julia Thorne." An ironic smile touched her lips as she pressed one hand to her brightly colored hair. "In a way, I am Julia Thorne now but only because it was the only way I could gain their trust. They think that I've been broken, that Sydney Bristow no longer exists but I'm here. I'm still me."

Sydney sighed and raised one hand absently to tuck a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Vaughn smiled at the familiar gesture, his fingers catching hers before they reached their target. He smoothed the hair back himself, lovingly.

"Yes, you are still my Sydney."

A shadow fell across her face and she averted her eyes from his loving gaze. "Vaughn, I've done things in the past few weeks that the woman you loved would never do."

"Does that really matter? You have been fighting for your life, Sydney. God, you should hear what I've been doing with my time without you." He shook his head sadly and gripped her hand tighter, pulling her to him and catching her lips in a gentle kiss.

"You are still the woman I love, you always will be. Never, ever forget that Sydney Bristow."

She looped her arms around his neck, leaning her head gently against his. "No matter what happens, death itself cannot keep us apart. We always find our way back to one another."

Vaughn smoothed his fingers through her hair and slowly the smile that grew on his face turned into an expression of puzzlement. "We do, but this isn't coincidence that you're here in this house." He met her eyes, knowing that no lie would hide inside them when she spoke. "They sent you here didn't they? But they didn't know I would be here, that this was my house passed down from my father. What were you sent to find?"

Sydney frowned briefly, she had almost forgotten the mission she was on, caught as she was in this sea of emotion. He was right, the painting was connected to them in some way. The Covenant had brought them back together inadvertently through their greed for the Rambaldi artifact. Why had William Vaughn kept this piece of the puzzle hidden for so many years? If Vaughn had known that painting was now, technically, in his possession, he would have turned it over to the CIA long ago.

"I was sent to find a painting by Rambaldi. I had no idea that this was your home, that you would be here when I arrived."

Vaughn frowned and Sydney could see the wheels turning in his head. She almost laughed at the situation they found themselves in. How easily they had slipped back into the roles they had assumed for so long, her giving him information and him picking up her train of thought so quickly that he had the answer before she did.

"The last mission my father was sent on involved a secret organization. I never knew the name of it but in his journal, he spoke of pieces of a larger puzzle that he had uncovered. He felt that the puzzle was dangerous, that the pieces would be lethal in the wrong hands. I never thought that he would keep a piece to himself, hide it away from the CIA and anyone who might try to get their hands on it. I never knew what he was talking about." He sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand over his tear stained face. She could see his inquisitive mind going to work, coming up with an answer to their questions and quickly discarding them before they reached his lips.

"Do you know where the painting is?" Sydney was afraid to ask; afraid of what answer she might receive. She found that she wanted nothing more to do with ancient prophecies or pieces of art. All she wanted was to lay down in Michael Vaughn's arms and never leave.

His answer shattered that dream as she knew it would. They had both slipped back too easily into the roles of Agents; they had to work together now if they wanted to solve this mystery.

"I think I do."

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