Title: Captured Moments: The Ride Home

Author: Kira [kira at sd-1 dot com]

Genre: S/V Fluff

Rating: PG

Summary: Captured moments from daily life

Author's Note: These started as small drabbles to keep my fans happy while I finished my longer fic, Chronic Vertigo and grew into Fluff Pills to be read post-episode to cope with the triangle. It's a series, each one short and stand-alone. Timeline: Between Phase One and The Telling, just randomly in there, as we didn't see every moment of their short time together.

Sydney Bristow didn't get many days off. As one can imagine, she prized these few days when she was allowed to sit at home and read, or maybe make her way around the city she had grown to love in her younger years, visiting those places she had once frequented as an overburdened student.

But at this moment, she was sitting at her kitchen table, a book sitting just out of her reach, a cool cup of iced chai tea nestled between her hands. Her eyes seemed glazed, her mind thinking of other things, of the days of past and those before her. It had been a wonderful day and promised to be a beautiful night, as the breeze passed through the front door to brush lightly against her skin.

The shrill of the telephone broke the zen-like silence of her home.

"Hello?" she asked. There was a crackle – while most people experienced this as a normal aspect of speaking to someone on a telephone, she knew the crackle to be that of a secure line being accessed. Her heart jumped into her throat. Had something happened?

"Hi sweetie," came Vaughn's soothing voice. The woosh sound in the background disappeared as she suspected he was closing his window.

"Hi!," she almost giggled, her face breaking into a sparkling grin.

"How was your day off?"

"It's so unfair that you had to work today."

He laughed. "Someone has to work, you know, the whole making money thing."

"We wouldn't be broke if you missed one day of work."

"We might! I can see it now – living out of a cardboard box under an….underpass."

"Complete with an alarm and bug killers?"

"Of course. And a door. A door made of reinforced steel."

"But cardboard walls?"

"Naw, we'd have to upgrade."

"So it's just a smaller house. You're saying if you had a day off, we'd have to move?"

"To the underpass, yes."

"Okay. Would you be able to take more days off?"

"Probably."

"Good. When do we move?"

"What did you do today?"

"Not so fast. You can't just change the topic like that."

"I thought we'd come to an agreement. We'll move. Sure. What did you do with your day off? Did you play some hockey for me?"

"No. I went to a café and got my nails done."

He scoffed. "Girly things."

"Hey, now. If you hadn't noticed – "

"I had, thanks. You'd think you'd be more productive on a day off."

"My nails were horrible."

"I didn't notice."

"You're supposed to!"

"Sorry! Next time, I'll, I'll pay attention to them. Really. I'm sure they're beautiful."

"They're just painted."

"How could they not be? They're your nails."'

She blushed and stood in the kitchen. He'd be home soon, she could tell, and started looking through the refrigerator and freezer.

"You still there?"

"Yeah. What do you want for dinner?"

"Anything really. Why don't you order a pizza?"

"You are so a bachelor."

"Oh?"

"You are. I've got to break you of these bad habits."

"Hey, they've served me well for all these years."

"Sure they have. How much do you run a day?"

"Hey now!"

"I'm just saying."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you are. So, no pizza. What do you want?"

She stuck her nose into the freezer. "There's nothing here. I can make some grilled cheese."

"Awesome. Make some tomato soup with that, and you've got a meal."

"Okay. How long until you get home?"

"15 minutes or so, depending on traffic."

"I'll see you then. I've got to go make some dinner."

"Alright, sweetie. Later."

"See you later."

She hung up and placed the phone on the counter before digging through the cupboard for needed supplies. He always called her on his way home from word and never said goodbye, as if he could feel her own apprehension and decided he'd never again say goodbye to her, for fear it would be the last time.