A/N: Heeeey. Sorry all. I know. It's been a while. But between finals and writers block I had some issues getting this out. Marty and I had to have several long talks about how we wanted to go about doing this (and yes I do realize I talked to my invisible muse…invisible does not mean imaginary!! ;) ) I hope you enjoy this chapter.

            Dedicated to:

            Nickell… Alrighty darling? There you go!!

            Jennifer… I knew you'd become addicted to it… hell I am!! ;)

            Oh, and the French translation will be in the end a/n.

Ch. 8   Something Right for Once

No change. It's been over 50 hours, over two days, and still there had been no change. It killed him to realize this as he sat in the uncomfortable chair, staring straight ahead of him, as he watched his daughter as she slowly read a book to Francie. It had always amazed him how wonderfully quick Bella had begun to read, able to read on her own at the age of 4, obviously a trait picked up from her mother's side.

            Sighing, Vaughn looked around the room. Everyone sat quietly, Weiss talked softly with Jack as Will and Lucy stayed occupied with Evelyn. Francie and Bella sat in front of him reading as his mother sat to his left, Danny on his right, leaning against him as he sifted through a book. Looking at his watch the time struck him deeply as he realized that it was almost 10 o'clock at night and they'd all been sitting in that room for over two days. Disgusted with himself for allowing it to happen, he quickly hoped to rectify the situation and turned to his mother, keeping his voice low.

            "Maman?"

            "Yes Michel?"

            "Maman, can you take the kids home for the night? They don't need to be here. They deserve to spend the night at home, get a real meal, a bath, sleep in their own beds."

            Brigitte nodded slowly. "Of course dear. I can take them right now."

            "Thanks." Vaughn smiled slightly as he shifted to turn to Danny. "Danny, Danny Memere is going to take you home for the night, ok?"

            Danny sat up straight and looked into his father's eyes, tears starting to build. "No."

            Vaughn sighed as he tried to reason with his son. "Danny…"

            "No. Dad, I want to stay. What if something happens?"

            "Danny I promise to call if anything should happen, ok? You need to get some real sleep." Vaughn sighed running his hand through his son's hair.

            "Dad, please." Danny pleaded.

            He knew that his son had gained his mother's stubborn streak, it was always apparent in everything he had done, but it had never come out as strongly as it had now. Nodding his head slowly, Vaughn consented with his son. "Ok."

            "Thank you." Danny whispered softly as he leaned back against his father.

            "Maman, can you still take the girls home?" Vaughn asked as his mother nodded. Standing Vaughn walked over to his oldest daughter and pulled her attention away from her book as he kneeled in front of her as she sat on Francie's lap. "Bella, sweetheart, Memere's gonna take you home to sleep ok?"

            "Are you coming?" She asked her voice tiny.

            "No. I'm going to stay here with Mommy. But you'll be back in the morning ok?" Bella nodded softly and Vaughn was thankful that at least one of his children went without an argument.

            "What about Danny?" Bella looked at her brother for a moment before turning back to her father.

            "Danny's going to hang out with me." Vaughn worded carefully, afraid that she would burst into tears and protest against leaving with her grandmother. "You'll be back before you know it, ok beauty?"

            "Ok." She whispered as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her father's neck.

            "That's my big girl." Vaughn smiled softly as he rubbed circles in his daughter's back as he stood and held her close. "Ok." He pulled back, still holding her. "I'll see you in the morning ok? Sleep tight baby."

            Bella nodded and kissed him on the cheek softly. "Night Daddy."

            "Night Bel." He kissed the crown of her head softly before setting her down and walking over to his youngest. "Come here sweetheart." He cooed softly as he reached down and took his daughter from Lucy. "You're going to go with Memere now, ok baby?" He called softly as Evelyn curled up against him, her fatigue showing through. "You get some sleep." He kissed her forehead softly before handing her over to her grandmother.

            "Thank you for this Maman."

            "No problem sweetheart. We'll go home, have a nice bath, get into some warm pjs and then have a good night sleep, right Bella?" Brigitte asked softly as the four year old nodded, her hand gripping her grandmother's as she leaned against her, tears in her eyes.

            Vaughn leaned down to become eye level with Bella. "I'll see you in the morning Beauty." She nodded her head again softly as Vaughn kissed her forehead and stood back up; brushing his hand over his youngest's head. "Thank you Maman."

            "Don't think about Michel." Brigitte smiled. "You'll call if anything changes?" Vaughn nodded. "Alright. See you in the morning. Say goodnight to Daddy."

            "Night Daddy." Bella called softly as Evelyn slept against her grandmother's shoulder.

            "Night Bel." Vaughn smiled.

            "Soin de prise de vous-même, chéri. Je t'aime. N'oubliez jamais cela." Brigitte called softly, kissing her son soflty on the cheek before turning and leading her granddaughters out of the hospital.

            Vaughn sighed deeply as he sagged back down into his chair against Danny. Danny instinctively leaned back up against his father as they sat side by side on the two person couch and curled his feet underneath him as Vaughn stroked his hair absentmindedly.

            "You ok?" Weiss called softly as he watched Vaughn stare off into space.

            "Yeah, I'm fine." Vaughn spoke softly. "You guys don't have to stick around like this. You can head out for the night. I promise to call if anything happens."

            "Nah, don't worry about it." Will spoke up. "I don't think any of us can bring ourselves to leave. Not just yet."

            Vaughn nodded as he leaned back against the back of the chair and ran his hand over his face. "I'm going to go check on her." He spoke softly as he stood and walked towards Sydney's room.

            They all watched as he walked away and slowly entered her room, taking a deep breath before he walked into the room. Weiss watched as his best friend waged a war inside himself and, kissing his wife on the cheek softly, stood and followed Vaughn.

            When he entered the room, he found Vaughn standing by her bed, just watching her chest move up and down as the machine forced her to breath. Moving slowly he walked up until he stood directly next to Vaughn, looking down at Sydney as she lay on the bed.

            "She looks so peaceful you'd think she was just sleeping." Vaughn whispered.

            Hearing the anguish in his best friend's voice, Weiss struggled to find something to say that would help Vaughn in anyway that he could. Finally deciding upon something, he kept his voice low as he spoke.

            "Do you know how I first knew about you two?"

            Vaughn shook his head slowly.

           "Surprisingly enough, it was because of Sydney." Vaughn's head shot up as he looked at Weiss in amazement. "I know. Of the two of you, you'd think that you'd be the one most likely to give it away, what with the way you suck at lying and all." Both of them chuckled slightly. "But no, it was her. The smile that never left her face. The way that she was amazingly happy. I knew that you had finally done something. Something right for once."

            "Good morning." She called as she floated into the room. Her smile was so bright that Weiss thought he may go blind at the sight of it.

            "Morning." He called back. "Good run?" He asked as he raised his eyebrows.

            "Something like that." She smiled as she walked over and poured herself a cup of coffee. "So, Weiss, how are you?"

            "I'm fine." He replied warily. What was her deal!?

            "That's great." She took a seat next to him. "Anything interesting happening?"

            "No, not really. There's this new assistant at Headquarters. She works for Johnson I think. Anyways, I was thinking of maybe asking her out." Weiss shrugged nonchalantly, waiting for her to roll her eyes and smack upside the head but it never came.

            "Yeah? She pretty?"

            Weiss looked at her skeptically for a moment. "Yeah. Petit, red hair, thin, gorgeous."

            "That's fantastic. You should totally ask her out Weiss."

            He could barely believe that she was saying these things to him. Normally she would be appalled by his description, feminist prose and all, but she was fine with it. More so she was telling him to go for it? Who was she and what did she do with the Sydney Bristow that he knew?!

            "Ok, what's going on?"

            "What do you mean?" She asked.

            "I mean what is wrong with you? You never act like that. Usually you are all, don't talk like that about women and blah, blah, blah. So what is wrong with you? You come to the ops center all happy and cheerful, and you just came from a meeting at SD-6, I didn't think that was actually possible. So, by all means, share. Because obviously you've found the secret to happiness." He smirked as he leaned back and looked at her.

            "Don't be ridiculous." She scoffed as she took a sip of her coffee. "I'm just in a good mood. Is there a law against that?"

            "I'm sure somewhere there is." He smiled at her, forcing her to breakout in laughter. "No seriously. I think there's a disease going around. I mean between you and Mike…" He trailed off as he noticed that she immediately avoided his eyes as the subject of Vaughn came up. Looking at her, it took him only a moment to figure it out. "Oh, my God."

            "What?" She looked up at him at his sudden outburst.

            "You finally got together!"

            "Who?"

            "You and Mike. You finally got together didn't you!?"

            "Don't be ridiculous." She shrugged him off as she stood and tried to move out of the room, but Weiss beat her to the door and closed it, keeping her in the room.

            "Look at me." She avoided his gaze at all costs. "You did. I can tell right there. You finally owned up to your feelings and did something about it."

            She looked at him for a quick moment. "Don't be stupid Eric. Michael and I can't be together and you know that."

            "Since when did you start calling him 'Michael'?" Weiss asked, his eyebrows rising.

            A deep blush rose in her cheeks as she realized her slip.

            "That's what I thought." A smile crept across Weiss's face as he realized he was right. "So last week, when Mike came in all happy and in a fabulous mood, right around the time you were coming home from your mission in London, he had snuck out there, hadn't he? You guys slept together."

            "WEISS!" Sydney whispered harshly. "Firstly, look where you are, would you shut up?! And secondly, that is none of your business."

            "So you are together." Weiss smiled at his victory.

            She rolled her eyes as she realized it was futile to deny it. She was about to reply when a look of fear crossed her features. "Weiss, you can't…you can't tell anyone about this. I mean Michael could lose his job. He could get reassigned. It's so very important that you…"

            "Hey, don't worry about it." Weiss smiled, placing a hand on either of her shoulders. "I'm happy for you two and I wouldn't dream of taking this away from either of you."

            "Thank you." She sighed in relief as the tension left her body.

            "So, do you guys like, make up missions so that you can meet?" He asked, his eyebrows wagging up and down.

            "Weiss." She sighed as she rolled her eyes and moved past him and out of the break room.

            "What?"

            Vaughn smiled at the memory. Images of their first night together in London flooded his mind as he gazed down at his wife, her chest moving rhythmically along with each beep of the heart monitor.

            "So?"

            "So what?" Vaughn asked as he turned back to look at his friend.

            "So did you sleep with her in London?"

            Weiss received his desired effects as Vaughn let loose a low chuckle, a smile creeping across his face. "Yeah. Yeah I did."

            "I knew it." Weiss smiled triumphantly as Vaughn shook his head in disbelief. "You know she's going to be ok, right?"

            Vaughn sobered quickly and looked down at his wife, his hand reaching out to graze hers with his fingertips. "There's less than 20 hours Eric. If she doesn't wake up in the next 20 hours…"

            "She will." Weiss cut him off, placing his hand on Vaughn's shoulder. "I've never seen her quit before, I don't think she plans on quitting now."

            Vaughn simply nodded before turning away, tears in his eyes. "I should go sit with Danny."

            "Mike…"

            "I'm Ok. He's just… I know he's worried. It's why he refused to go home." Weiss nodded as Vaughn turned and walked out the door.

            Weiss sighed as he turned back to look at Sydney. "Always causing trouble Bristow." He looked down at her and smiled slightly before sobering. Vaughn had been right, she looked so peaceful.

            "I don't know what went down with you guys. I don't. But when I was waiting for the kids… your wedding rings… I know it must have been bad for you to have taken those off. You never take those babies off. Ever." He sighed and leaned down placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.

            "You better not leave him Sydney. I love you but I will not forgive you for leaving him. I never blamed you for anything that went wrong with Mike after you came into his life. Not the almost loss of his job, not that virus, nothing. But I will not forgive you if you leave him like this. I won't." His eyes had gone cold as he spoke to her. However has he bent to kiss her softly again, his eyes softened. "After all, I need someone to help me through parenthood. Francie's already freaked out about it. She's going to need you for this Syd."

            Slowly he turned and walked out the door, back to sit next to his wife who had finally fallen asleep.

            She stopped suddenly. Weiss's voice reverberated around her and her heart caught in her throat. Francie was pregnant!? A smile crept across her face as she realized that this was probably what Francie had wanted to talk to her about when they made plans for a lunch date.

            Smiling, she began to walk again, the darkness becoming thicker with every step as she struggled to return to her family.

            A/N: Translation: Take care of yourself, darling. I love you. Never forget that.

           

            Anyways… Sooo sad that the Ducks lost. (Though Jiggy got the Conn Smyth Trophy!! He totally deserved it too!! Though, no offense to Jersey fans… but that was soo cruel the way they booed! I wanted to jump into the TV and give the poor guy a hug!! However, He gets married tomorrow!! So the best to him!!) Though game 6 rocked. I mean for Paul Kariya to come back from a Stevens hit is amazing enough, but to come back and finally, finally, get a goal rocked my world. We all know the Ducks are the greatest anyways.

            Hopefully it won't take me too, too long to update next time. I am out of school now (SCORE!) so hopefully another chapter next week!!

            As always, please let me know what you thought.

            Merci,

            - SAG